Sunday
by HalfASlug
Summary: After years of battles with Dark magic and each other, Ron and Hermione have earned the right to spend a couple of days in bed.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: Howdy. I've realised that if I bribe myself with fanfic writing as a reward, I do uni work a lot quicker so a one-shot happened. Hope you enjoy the fruit of my labour._

_Disclaimer: J.K Rowling hit the jackpot because to her work is writing Harry Potter._

* * *

"Ron!"

"Sorry."

"I am being serious now-"

"Last time. Promise."

"You've really finished?"

"Yes."

"Sure?"

"Yep."

Still unconvinced that Ron was being truthful, Hermione settled her head on his shoulder and rested a hand on his stomach where it had been moments before. Her fingers traced a crease in his t-shirt and she wondered when it had last been ironed. He had been living here at the Burrow again for nearly three months and he still hadn't got used to keeping his clothes clean. In fact, Hermione suspected that without his own room in which to hide his dirty clothes, Ron had been better off when they had been on the run.

Had it been any other time, Hermione would have probably mentioned this, but right now it was a lazy Sunday evening, they were filled with Mrs Weasley's classic Sunday Roast and were both far too content lounging around on Ron's bed – or at least they would have been if it wasn't for the shifty look on Ron's face. Hermione braced herself and waited.

Sure enough, a matter of seconds later, Ron's right hand darted across and poked her breast.

"Boob."

"If you do that one more time-"

"Boob."

"Oh, that is it."

Hermione forced Ron onto his stomach and, while he was still shocked by her sudden movements, managed to clamber on top of him. He tried to break his arms free, but Hermione had them pinned under her legs so the worst his hands could do was tickle her shins. Fighting back giggles (she was meant to be annoyed after all), Hermione pushed Ron's head into his pillow as he feebly tried to push her off.

"Repeat after me," she instructed, "'Hermione's breasts are not my personal playthings.'"

"But they ar-OW!"

She had pulled his hair.

"Hermione's breasts are not my personal playthings," came Ron's muffled voice from somewhere in the pillow.

"Thank you," Hermione said primly and rolled off him. "I'm glad we could resolve that in a mature manner."

Ron snorted as he moved back into his original position with his arm behind her head as though it was the most natural thing in the world. Hermione found herself smiling once again because, not only were they a couple, but they were acting like one. Her legs had snuggled in between his without her having to think about it, his fingers were curling a lock of her hair around themselves and neither of them were blushing or avoiding eye contact.

Hermione glanced up to see if Ron looked as serene as she felt and saw he had an oddly dreamy expression on his face.

"What?" she asked, frowning a little.

Ron didn't appear to be paying attention and continued looking out into the distance. "Hmm?"

"What were you just thinking?" she reiterated. She nudged him a little to try and get a reaction of some sort.

"Oh." He twisted his head slightly to look down at her. "Nothing."

With a sigh, Hermione rested her chin on his chest. Ron's attention snapped to her, apparently sensing that his answer was far from satisfactory.

"Ron, we said _complete_ honesty."

"I'm not lying about anything!" he protested.

"I'm not saying you are," placated Hermione. She raised herself onto her elbows and let her fingers straighten out his fringe that had become a state when _someone_ had shoved his head into a pillow. "But every time we thought something and didn't tell the other is another day we weren't together. If we were open before, we could have had this months - even years - ago."

The truth of her words washed over him and Ron looked a little sheepish. The idea that they could have been this comfortable play fighting and casually touching each other years ago was so painfully beautiful to Hermione. They could have danced at the Yule Ball. They could have hugged in celebration of a Gryffindor Quidditch victory. They could have kissed under the mistletoe at Slughorn's party. The nights they had spent in the tent needn't have been so cold and lonely.

He could have carried her schoolbag and she could've held his hand. Some of the Slytherins would have laughed and some of the younger students would have pulled faces, but it wouldn't have mattered; they would have been too caught up in each other.

Now, they would never know what that felt like because they had both been too shy, stubborn and stupid to say anything. So, when they had finally admitted their feelings to one another, they had agreed to never hold back. Never again would they impede their own happiness.

"I was-" Ron sighed and his ears started to show the signs of reddening. "It's stupid-"

"I still want to hear it."

Their eyes met and Hermione watched him accept that there was no hiding away this time. Slowly, a smirk spread across his face. Hermione recognised that smirk and now had a rough idea of where his mind had wandered.

"I was just wondering," he said quietly, eyes locked with hers, "about how weird it would be if started using dirty talk."

"Weird?" Hermione frowned. She decided to focus on that part of the sentence in the hope the rest could be forgotten.

"Well, it'd be hot as hell, but I dunno…" he tailed off.

"What?" There was something about the way he was looking at her that made her a tad uneasy.

"_Oh, Ron_," Ron squawked in what was clearly meant to be an impersonation of her, but sounded more like an elderly aristocrat, "_it'd be just_ splendid _if you were to insert your penis into my vagina_-"

Without further ado, Hermione started pinching every inch of him that she could reach as Ron curled into a protective ball and continued his impression through his laughter.

"_I'm sure it would bring me to climax forthwith_-"

One of Hermione's hands managed to breach the barrier Ron had turned his limbs into and twisted one of his nipples.

"Ouch!" he cried, rubbing it. "Why are _my_ breasts allowed to be _your_ playthings?"

"I do not speak like that!" she snapped at him, pointing at him for good measure.

"_One would never befoul the air with such_-" Ron was eventually cut off when Hermione clamped on of her hands over his mouth.

"Just because I am well-spoken," she told him through gritted teeth, "does _not_ mean I speak like Queen's cousin!"

Ron rolled his eyes as if to say "whatever" and Hermione removed her hand.

"_Do hurry along with the foreplay, Ronald, as one must see to the corgis-"_

This time Hermione started tickling his ribs.

"Okay, okay," Ron laughed, holding his hands up in surrender. "I'm sorry!"

Hermione gave him her sternest look before curling up next to him again. Something about the way his voice quivered that time told her that he had learnt his lesson. Part of her felt a little guilty, but he must have noticed that winding her up like this always led to minor physical assault by now. Perhaps he secretly enjoyed it as much as she did…

Ron pulled a strand of her hair away from her face as he planted a kiss on her forehead, reminding her that he was her boyfriend first and a punchbag second.

"I could talk dirty," she stated far more confidently that she felt. Right now she couldn't think of anything more awkward. What would she say? Well, she knew the sort of things that fell into the category of _dirty talk, _but actually saying them without laughing or being mortified was a different matter altogether.

Still, she thought as she chanced a glance at Ron, it was worth saying it to see the look on his face. Clearly his ever-active imagination had gone into overdrive as his eyes were wide and he hadn't taken a breath since she had spoken. He licked his top lip, trying to act as casual as possible.

"Go on then," he dared her. Hermione smiled at him, but it soon dropped into a look of horror when she saw that he was serious.

"I-I can't do it now," she spluttered indignantly.

"You really can."

Hoping to distract him, Hermione leaned over Ron, letting her hair tickle the sides of his face. She tried to maintain eye contact – they both did in fact – but both pairs of eyes kept slipping to the set of lips that were moving gradually closer.

"Maybe I'm going to surprise you sometime?" Hermione said quietly.

"Yeah?"

"Yes."

"Sometime soon?"

Loving the build-up to the inevitable as much as the act itself, Hermione prolonged it by rubbing her nose against his long one, unable to hold back a chuckle. The wait for that first kiss had been painful; the gap between every kiss since seemed to grow in intensity. Smiling, Ron had wound his hand into her hair and kept twitching his mouth towards hers.

"Maybe."

Finally their lips met and only then did Hermione truly feel the weight of her feelings for the man she was currently half-lying on. The exchange was slow and lazy, but so had the rest of their movements that day. There was none of the frantically probing tongue that Ron always seemed to use when he was feeling particularly enthusiastic, nor any of the moaning that Hermione usually did, as she slowly lost herself in the moment – just a simple kiss that was anything but.

After what could have been years or even decades, Hermione pulled away, biting her bottom lip which was already swollen. It took Ron a few more seconds to finally open his eyes, but, when he did, Hermione felt herself tear up at just how perfect and ordinary and spectacular that moment was.

"What?" breathed Ron as he tucked some of her hair behind her ear and cupped her cheek.

Hermione pressed a kiss onto his rough palm before leaning into it. "Nothing."

"No," he chided her with a roll of his eyes, "every time we don't say stuff a pixie dies or something so spill."

As she tried to organise her thoughts into a coherent sentence, Hermione settled down against him again, hugging him tightly and rubbing one of his jean-clad legs with her foot.

"I'm just thinking how lucky I am," she whispered into his shoulder.

Ron quirked an eyebrow at her. "To have successfully avoided having to talk dirty?"

"No," she said simply, knowing that she hadn't won that argument and would have to live up to her promise at some point. It didn't matter though; each step they took together would be as natural as the ones that had preceded them. "To have fallen in love with my best friend."

* * *

_A/N2: Thanks for reading!_

_While this is marked as complete, it may turn into a short fic dump at some point because I have a lot of Ron and Hermione lounging around in bed plot bunnies and this seems a good place to keep them. Just so you know, there won't be any smut, but I may have various other characters show up, such as Rose and Hugo or Harry or whoever. Anybody hoping for Prof. Flitwick may be disappointed though._


	2. Chapter 2

_This is dedicated to wazlib88 for not curing me of this ridiculous obsession with bunny-love and thesecondshelf who needed a distraction._

_For those concerned with my education, I'm on top of my work so I'm allowed to write this. Promise._

_Disclaimer: J.K Rowling framed Roger Rabbit and wrote Harry Potter._

* * *

"Hermione," pleaded Ron through gritted teeth, "_please _don't make me do this."

Hermione calmly turned the page in her book, not even looking at her husband. "A promise is a promise."

"Yeah, but-"

"It's for the kids, Ron." Hearing him whimper a little made Hermione glance at the man, stood at the foot of the bed, as she tried to hide her smirk. "You said if Harry took Christmas, you'd do Easter."

Ron pouted in a way that made him look about Hugo's age before covering his face in his hands. For a split second Hermione considered pitying him, but instead settled on making the situation worse.

"It's not like George will be there," she said soothingly before adding, "for too long."

With a groan, Ron threw himself onto the bed face first and lay there for a whole minute as Hermione watched on, thoroughly amused. It had all started as a joke last summer when Molly and Arthur offered to babysit for their two youngest children and the four happy parents had gone out for a meal. Unfortunately a couple of glasses of wine with dinner to four people who had barely drank in months were not what they remembered them as. They had gone straight to their heads and it wasn't long before they were gathered in the drawing room in Grimmauld Place, giggling like school children and discussing the joys of parenthood.

Hugo was only a few months old at the time and they had started planning out what to get him for Christmas. Ron's idea of a broomstick was shot down immediately, as was Hermione's suggestion of a full set of encyclopaedias. It was then Ginny told the story of something her dad had done on Christmas for her and soon plans were being made and the whole thing snowballed.

That Christmas, Harry had dressed as Father Christmas and given their over-excited children presents before exiting through the chimney. Even hard-to-please James and even-harder-to-trick Rosie had been made up by the whole thing.

And now, on Easter Sunday, it was Ron's turn.

"I look stupid," a muffled voice said from the lump at the end of the bed.

Taking her time saving her page and putting her book down, Hermione finally crawled from under the covers to the broken heap that was the man she loved. She pulled him up by the scruff of the neck so that she could look him in the eye and smiled.

"You look cute," she told him, kissing him on the nose.

"Don't wanna be cute," he grumbled.

"Well, I'm sorry but you are," she chuckled. "Occupational hazard of dressing like the Easter Bunny."

Ron groaned and tried to hide his face again but Hermione stopped him. Instead he settled for glaring at her. She may have found it intimidating if it weren't for him having whiskers and rabbit nose painted on his face and one of his large ears drooping down over his eyes.

"Surely Harry should've had Easter," he whined. "Coming back from the dead is his party piece after all."

"You wanted Easter, you've got Easter," Hermione said, pushing his ear out of his face. "Think of Hugo's face lighting up."

"I'm too busy trying not to think about James pulling my tail," he countered with a grimace.

Unable to hold back any longer, Hermione burst out laughing. The more she tried to stop, the more it kept coming and soon she could barely breathe.

"I'm s-sorry," she wheezed through snorts.

"I want a divorce," Ron deadpanned.

"No you don't."

"Do."

"Don't."

"Do."

Hermione arched an eyebrow. "You think you can find someone else who will still love you dressed like this?"

"Luna."

"Someone who won't think this costume comes with special Aztec healing powers?"

Ron looked thoughtful for a moment before his shoulders slumped in defeat. Hermione hated seeing Ron like this, even over something as silly as a white rabbit costume so leant forward and kissed him.

"You're forgetting one of the things rabbits are famous for," she whispered against his lips.

"Huh?" Ron stared for a moment before the meaning of Hermione's words dawned on him. "Really? In the costume?"

"Ron," Hermione said, planting kisses along his jaw, "I would want you dressed as the Tooth Fairy."

Even though he clearly had no idea who or what the Tooth Fairy was, Ron threw himself at his wife, knocking her onto her back and started kissing every part of her face that he could. Temporarily forgetting the children's party and the egg hunt they were hosting, Hermione let him nibble and suck a trail down her neck as she sighed and closed her eyes. She opened them again when Ron had reached her neckline and, over the top of his head, saw his bum wiggling in the air, sending his pink tail wagging.

She couldn't help it. She started roaring with laughter.

Ron lifted his head and shot her a furious look. With as much dignity as a fully-grown man in a bunny suit could manage, he pulled himself up and headed for the bedroom door.

"You're going to need a solicitor in the morning," he growled as he straightened his ears up again.

"And you're going to need a cuddle and behind your ears tickled," she called after him.

He gave no indication of hearing her other than slamming the door as he left.


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: Two updates in a day. I'm on fire._

_No - seriously. I'm on fire. Please phone for help._

_Disclaimer: J.K Rowling still won't let me own Harry Potter. Clearly someone wasn't taught how to share as a child..._

* * *

According to the clock on Hermione's bedside table it was quarter to one in the morning when she felt herself drift back into consciousness. She blinked a few times, trying to find her bearings and soon realised that she was in her bed at her parents' house. Steadily details of the previous hours came back to her as her eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness of her bedroom. It was her mum's birthday next week so her dad had taken her to see a play on the West End and they were both staying in London for the weekend. With her parents' permission, she had invited Harry and Ron around for dinner, which had inevitably became a take-away. They had both stayed for a few hours until they both had to go home to the Burrow.

Most definitely without her parents' permission, she had arranged with Ron for him to Apparate back to her house when everyone else had gone to bed so that he could stop the night. They had never organised something like this before, but Ron had suggested it after he learnt that she would be on her in own in the house overnight. Hermione wasn't naïve enough to believe that he had no ulterior motive, but she was more than willing to play along with the idea.

Hermione, now almost awake, laced her fingers in between the fingers of the hand that was resting on her stomach. A warm feeling spread through her as she realised that they were spooning for the first time and felt herself smiling giddily. Before tonight, after these kinds of –_ activities_ – they had only fallen asleep for short periods of time and had never had to find comfortable sleeping positions. Normally Hermione would awake to find her head resting on Ron's shoulder or chest, but normally she slept on her side. Apparently Ron had snuggled up to her in the night.

It made her feel like some pathetic school girl with a crush, but Hermione couldn't help but want to dance around and possibly start singing over the sheer joy of the boy she had always fancied wanting to cuddle her while she slept. It was utterly ridiculous and she knew when she was more awake she would be ashamed by such thoughts but, right now, she didn't care. After all, this was still the honeymoon period of their relationship; this when everything was meant to feel all shiny and new. This was only the seventh time they had even slept together. Or was it the eighth?

Hermione frowned, trying to remember each incident that she had tried to burn into her memory until the end of time, but already they were starting to blur together into one recollection of happiness. Now she was smiling again; somehow forgetting the number was more special than keeping track. Hermione sighed contently and wondered if this constant state of elation and giddiness was good for her. Even if it wasn't though, Hermione doubted she would want it to stop. It was the little things that she hadn't even expected to happen that were what made finally being with Ron so incredible. It was the weight of his arm across her side. It was one of his legs being between hers and his leg hair tickling the skin that she had never cared more about shaving in her life. It was his breath warming the back of her neck through her hair. It was that feeling of something pressed against her bum-

Oh.

Straight away, Hermione knew what _that_ was and felt herself tense up. She had no idea why though. After all, she had touched it and – things – before. It wasn't like she didn't know it was going to be there when they weren't, well, _using_ it. But still…

As gently as she could, Hermione tried to shuffle forward a little, just enough so her middle wasn't in contact with any part of Ron. Unfortunately the moment she stopped moving, Ron, still unconscious, pulled her back towards him. In any other situation Hermione would have found the action incredibly sweet, but now it had annoyed her.

She closed her eyes and tried to rationalise this strange turn of events. This shouldn't be weird. She loved him. He was her boyfriend and she loved him and this sort of thing was expected. Right? She exhaled deeply and decided not to think about it. This was the first time this had happened to her so of course it was going to feel a little peculiar. They had been friends for years and for most of that having his _leg _too close to her sent her into a fit of panic and blushing. This was just like that.

Exactly like that. No difference at all when you thought about it.

No. It was no good.

She may be a mature, legal adult, completely besotted with the man behind her, but the fact remained that a boy's willy was touching her and she would much rather that it didn't.

Hermione sighed and chastised herself. It must have been well over a decade since she had last used the word 'willy'. It was a penis. Ron's penis.

And there was no way she could sleep with it pressed against her.

Giving into the voice inside her head that had curled into a ball and started squealing since she had woken up, Hermione scouted the room for her pants. If she could just slip out of bed, put them and return without waking Ron up, there would no longer be an issue and she could go back to acting like a normal, love-struck fool. Slowly, she edged away from him as she pulled her pillow down to replace her next to Ron, hoping that he would mistake it for her. Once the pillow was in place, Hermione carefully rolled out of bed in a move that she was fairly certain didn't look as smooth as she had thought it had been.

She sat up on her haunches and inspected the bed, making sure that there was no way a cold draft or anything else could wake Ron up. Once that was done, her eyes fell on his face and the way his lips were slightly parted and hair fell into his eyes. Every so often his eyelids would flicker and Hermione had to fight the urge to kiss him. She stood up, cursing her ankle bone as it cracked unnecessarily loudly, and tip-toed over to her discarded underwear.

"Mynee? Why y'over there?"

If Hermione had approved of foul language, she could have thought of several four letter words that perfectly summed up that moment.

She was completely naked, in the middle of her room and in full view of Ron.

Yes, he had seen her nude seven or eight times already, but that had always been lying down or, well, while she was straddling him – never just _walking around._

This, she thought, feeling flustered, this was _pointless_ nudity. What if Ron thought that this was normal to her or anyone else? Would he want them to start being nude all of the time? Would they watch TV while naked? What about cooking? That could be a safety hazard! He probably hadn't even considered that when he decided he was going to become a naturist. This was _so _typical-

"Hermione?"

Oh. He was still waiting for a response.

"Yes?" she answered in what she hoped was a dignified and casual way but she knew damn well was just a squeak.

"What're you doing?"

"Nothing."

"I can see that," Ron said slowly, "but why are you doing nothing over there?"

Now the original shock had worn off, Hermione tried as slyly as she could to cover her backside with her hands and hoped her movements wouldn't draw any attention to that part of her anatomy.

"I-I was getting something," she stuttered, squeezing her eyes shut and wishing Ron would just assume that it was something boring and go back to sleep.

"What?" Ron's voice didn't sound particularly sleepy anymore, much to Hermione's horror.

"It doesn't matter," she replied quickly.

The seconds ticked by and for a moment Hermione thought he would give up.

"Come back to bed then."

The words sent a shiver down her spine, but Hermione had no time to indulge her teenage fantasies of Ron saying that sentence and how she would react. She was gradually becoming more panicked, knowing that the longer this situation went on, the worse it would get, but still being unable to stop it.

"In a minute."

Her mumbled plea was met with silence once more. Still with her eyes closed, Hermione tried to breathe evenly and hoped that Ron's vision was still clouded with sleep so that he wouldn't notice.

"Look at me," he sighed in a way that made Hermione instantly want to melt into a puddle. If he ever found out what the deeper and calmer version of his voice did to her self-control…

Hermione looked over her shoulder and saw Ron, bed hair sticking up everywhere, still lying under the covers of her bed, hugging a pillow and observing her with a bewildered expression. If it wasn't for how self-conscious she felt right now, Hermione would find the sight undeniably the most heart-warming thing she had ever seen.

"Why're you doing that?" He frowned and looked even more confused.

She gaped at him. "You asked me to!"

Ron opened his mouth to reply but seemed unable to think of a response. Instead, with a huge sigh, he sat up and let the duvet fall around his waist. _Great, _Hermione thought, trying not to stare. Now she had to try and conduct herself in a proper manner while she could see that patch of freckles and nipples and that trail of ginger hair that went from his navel to… well… the thing that had started all of this.

"Is this a weird girl thing?" Ron asked with another sigh.

"Weird girl thing?"

"Yeah," nodded Ron, "where I'm supposed to understand why you're acting like a nutter but I really don't."

"No," spat Hermione, offended that Ron even thought a thing even existed.

"Right," he said slowly. "So… come back to bed."

And now he was saying that when she could see his eyes. It wasn't like Ron even had a specific _come hither _look; it seemed every time he looked in her direction Hermione wanted to _go hither_ to him.

"No."

They stared at each other, her blushing and him baffled. She had somehow gone nearly seven years of knowing him without making him think she was completely crazy. Seven weeks into a relationship with him, however, and he looked as though he was about to have a bed booked for her next to Gilderoy Lockhart.

Eventually he rolled his eyes. "What do you want me to do?" he asked heavily, accepting defeat.

"Could you – um – turn around?" she requested timidly.

Instead of complying, Ron's eyes widened in surprise. "What?"

"Turn around."

"I've seen it all befo-" Ron started before covered his eyes with one of his large hands his shoulders sagged. "Is that what this is about?"

"Just turn around," Hermione demanded.

"Why?"

"It's different standing up!"

Her exclamation was met with more baffled silence and goldfish impressions by Ron and Hermione wondered why someone hadn't taken sympathy on her and allowed the Earth to swallow her whole.

"Do you turn green or something?" smirked Ron. Now that he seemed to find the situation amusing, Hermione felt the beginnings of anger stir inside of her.

"Don't be ridiculous," she snapped. "It's just different."

"Different?"

"Gravity?"

"I've seen you sat up naked before," Ron said dismissively.

"Yes, but that's when – things – are happening," Hermione groaned. It wasn't like she thought any part of her was particularly bad, it was just that it always seemed to look a lot better when she was lying down. While her breasts almost disappeared, she had got used to that over the past couple of weeks and Ron didn't seem to care, but that was still while they were moving around or under a duvet. Even now, after weeks of Ron's reassurances, Hermione was still convinced that she had somehow been fooling him and, the moment he saw the real her, he would suggest they were better off as friends.

Ron on the other hand, still looked as though she had gone mad and was trying desperately to make sense of the situation. However, he appeared to be becoming frustrated and that usually made him fumble over words.

"Well, yeah," he replied, looking as if he wasn't trying to remember the _things _she was talking about, "okay, they _move_ and stuff-" He made a weird gesture with his hands and Hermione wondered what on Earth she must look like. "-but still. Besides," he added with a cheeky grin, "I can already see your arse."

Giving up all notions of subtlety, Hermione clamped her hands over her behind and tried to cover as much as possible.

"Don't look at it!"

"Why?" chuckled Ron. "It's a great arse."

"Stop."

"Best thing about it?"

"Shut up."

"That freckle."

"There's no freckle!"

"There is," Ron said knowingly. "Have you never looked? You should. It's a great arse."

"Ron," Hermione growled, thinking that there was at least one _great arse _in the room.

"Really. If that were my arse, I wouldn't cover it up with boxers," he continued jovially, ignoring her warnings.

"Stop talking!"

"I would with jeans though," he said dreamily. "It looks spectacular in jeans."

"RON!"

Finally Ron sat back against the head board with a smug smile about his lips and his eyes moved from her bum up to her face. Straight away, Ron's grin fell away into a look of confusion. Hermione didn't know exactly why, but she suspected it had something to do with the tears building in her eyes. She felt silly but the situation had span far out of her control and she just wanted to crawl into bed with Ron and hope he stopped complimenting her. Saying he liked what she was wearing was one thing, but this was clearly just him trying to wind her up and it was cruel.

She knew she wasn't one of the classic beauties and she was okay with that. She loved that Ron loved her for her and not how she looked and him pretending like this just made her angry.

"Hermione?" Ron said tentatively. He had clearly noticed her upset and was treading carefully. "You do know that you're fit, right?"

"_Fit?_" scoffed Hermione.

"Yeah," nodded Ron. "Sexy. Supremely fuckable."

"Your idea of flattery gets worse every minute," she replied dryly. Hermione tried to tell herself that she _wasn't _flattered in the slightest, but the heat rising in her face told a different story.

It seemed that Ron's good humour had disappeared. He sat forward, leaning his elbows on his knees and frowned at her. "Why are you hiding?"

"I'm not," she mumbled.

Ron sighed. "Turn around."

He looked so serious and his deep, calm voice was back so Hermione gulped and felt herself slowly revolve on the spot. She covered herself with her hands and stared at her feet, knowing her face was likely bright pink and wishing he would either speak or fall straight back to sleep somehow. Anything to end this embarrassment would do.

After a couple of seconds though, Hermione couldn't help but have a peek at his reaction and noticed he was watching her face, though it was clearly costing him some effort.

"See?" he shrugged as if his point was obvious. "You're beautiful and all that."

Hermione rolled her eyes and sniffed, slightly horrified that this whole thing had somehow made her teary eyed. Her boyfriend, for reasons she couldn't begin to fathom, genuinely thought she was beautiful. It didn't matter that he was wrong for so many reasons that she could spend the rest of the night listing.

"Right." Ron suddenly pulled back the covers completely and scrambled out of bed with very little grace, his long limbs unfolding before her, all pale, covered in freckles and fine ginger hair. He stood a foot in front of her, his arms out-stretched, and raised his eyebrows at her.

"Now we've both seen each other naked and dangly. Is that better?"

Hermione looked into his resigned face and couldn't help but fall deeper in love with him. Somehow.

"Dangly?" she chuckled before snorting with laughter. Immediately Ron joined in and soon enough they were both stood naked in the middle of bedroom, breathless from giggling.

"C'mere," whispered Ron when they had stopped, pulling her into a hug. She held him around the middle and snuggled against his chest, loving the feel of everything from his head resting on hers, to her toes overlapping with his.

With a sigh, Hermione pulled back before standing on her tip-toes to kiss him chastely on the mouth.

"You're not so bad yourself, you know?" she said shyly, arms still wrapped around him.

"Hmm?"

"Handsome. Sexy. Supremely-" Ron raised his eyebrows in preparation of the word stuck in her mouth. "I'm sure you know the rest of that well-known phrase."

Even though he grinned at her avoidance, Hermione was sure she saw the tips of his ears burn red before he ducked down to kiss her again. She wasn't sure how long they were kissing before Ron pulled back.

"Can we get back in bed now?" he whinged. "I'm cold."

"Okay," Hermione giggled and took a step towards her bed but Ron pulled her back.

"Actually, can I put my boxers back on first?" he asked awkwardly. "I don't really like sleeping in the buff. I just get really paranoid that some kind of emergency will happen in the middle of the night and I'll have to deal with it with my bits out."

Hermione laughed before kissing him again briefly and hopping back into bed. As she burrowed back under the covers, she watched Ron find his underwear and put it on, thankful that she had not only found a boyfriend whom she loved just as much as he loved her and was as accidentally perfect as it was possible to be, but that he also had an issue with them both sleeping naked. Ron soon joined her, hugging her from behind once more, and Hermione doubted she'd ever be as happy at gone one in the morning again.


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N: Hello! This chapter contains three things the others don't: Harry, snot and Christmas. Please welcome the new additions to the Sunday family._

_Talking of the latter, I hope you all had a good one. If you don't celebrate it then I still hope your 25th December was jolly anyway. Have a fun new year, folks! See y'all in 2013!_

_Disclaimer: J.K Rowling didn't give me the Potter publishing rights for Christmas. I know. I'm shocked too._

* * *

"Oi!" Ron hissed as he hoisted the large bag he was carrying more securely onto his shoulder. "Watch what you're doing with that thing!"

Behind him, a large collection of pine needles, baubles and tinsel rustled angrily.

"Sorry," came Harry's frustrated voice from somewhere inside the tree, "it's kind of hard to see where I'm going at the moment."

"Just be more careful. You keep shoving it up my arse!"

"What arse? Anyway, who says I'm doing it accidentally?"

"I will push you down the stairs in a minute..."

The boys' argument dropped to a whisper as they approached the third floor landing of Grimmauld Place. It was Christmas morning and, along with his usual childlike desire to rush downstairs and rip open his presents, Ron had woken up with an ingenious plan. And so, he had crept up two floors to Harry's room to secure a partner in crime. Admittedly Harry hadn't entirely appreciated being woken up at seven in the morning, but it hadn't taken long to get him on board. Half an hour later, they stood outside of Hermione's room, silently trying to work out the best way of executing the final stage. A lot of shuffling, pointed glares and stood-on toes later, Harry used the bottom of the tree to barge the bedroom door open, the two of them barrelling in after it and then promptly falling over.

Ron quickly righted himself in time to see his beloved fiancee scream, scramble up in bed and point a wand directly at him.

"Merry Christmas!" he shouted as shock changed to recognition on Hermione's face. She looked around at Harry placing the tree securely in the corner and the presents spilling out of the bag Ron had left on the floor and sneezed.

"What are you both doing?" she asked thickly. She fumbled a pack of tissues on the bedside table before blowing her nose.

"Couldn't have Christmas without you," Harry chuckled.

Hermione frowned as Ron upturned the bag of presents in the vague direction of the tree. Even though there were dark circles under her eyes, her hair was everywhere and her nose was red, she still looked beautiful to him. Years ago Ron would've laughed at the idea. In fact, even now he thought he was clearly barmy on some level, but he had stopped caring about things like that. He had simply accepted that even when she was bunged with a cold like she was now and clearly a haggard mess, she looked beautiful to him.

"I am capable of going downstairs," Hermione huffed.

Harry snorted in response as he straightened the tree decorations out. "Yeah, but this way you get to stay warm and get presents," he shrugged.

As was expected, Hermione didn't take kindly to people suggesting she wasn't capable of doing something. "This is insane," she hissed. She pulled the covers back and went to get out of bed, but sneezed again instead. Immediately Ron was at her side, forcing her back into bed. She complied, but not without a glare.

"It's just a cold," she told him stubbornly. Ron ignored her and just fluffed her pillows up before she sat back against them.

"Hermione," Harry sighed, now neatly setting the presents out under the tree, "don't make me have carried the whole bloody tree up here for no reason."

"But -"

"Please?" Ron pleaded. He took one of her tiny hands in both of his and tried for his winning smile. "I promise we won't eat Christmas dinner in bed, but you have to rest up, love."

"I can't have you sneezing on the roast potatoes," Harry added.

Ron gave her hand a squeeze and silently hoped that she would cave. She had spent the past few days being ill and Ron had tried his best to stop her carrying on as normal and get some rest. However, never one to sit idly by, especially at a busy time like the build up to Christmas, Hermione had continuously ignored him. It had lead to a few minor arguments, but Ron usually won. As much as she tried to deny it, Hermione was ill after all.

Now, she looked from Ron to Harry, clearly fighting the urge to carry on resisting their idea. Eventually, after staring at the tree for a while, she finally smiled.

"Thank you," she whispered, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. Ron shook his head in amusement. It always bemused him how she got all emotional over such silly things.

"No problem," Ron said quietly before he leant in to kiss her. To his great surprise, Hermione pulled back with a grimace.

"Ron, don't," she sniffed. "I'm disgusting."

He shrugged. "I don't care."

Again he tried to kiss her but she placed a hand on his shoulder to push him back. "I don't want you getting ill as well."

Ron sighed and shuffled a little bit closer to her. "In theory this is the only Christmas I'll be able to kiss my fiancee." He tried to tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear, but his finger got caught in it. Instead of drawing attention to this, Ron buried his whole hand in the curls as though that had been his intention to begin with. "Don't rob me of that."

As soon as he had said 'in theory', Ron expected to have messed everything up and receive a swift blow to the side of the head with a pillow. To his great surprise, the pillow wasn't turned into an impromptu weapon and Hermione's frosty exterior melted into the smile that never failed to do something weird to his heart.

"Fine, but-" Hermione glanced over at Harry, who still had his back to them. "_-no tongues_," she mouthed.

A goofy grin found its way on to his face as Ron pressed his lips to her slightly chapped ones. Of course, it wasn't long before he had ignored her instruction. It was Christmas after all. Much too soon, Hermione had pulled away.

"That it?" Ron complained, making her giggle.

"I can't breathe through my nose, Ron," she replied with a roll of her eyes. "That's it or I pass out."

Ron figured kissing her in short intervals was better than not at all so he kissed her again. Even though he knew this couldn't be healthy, Ron doubted nothing, not even the presence of snot and germs, would stop him loving every moment spent kissing her. This was just another part of the 'I've Clearly Gone Mad But I Don't Care' thing really.

"Only so long I can pretend to rearrange the presents for."

As soon as Harry's sing-song voice reached them, Ron and Hermione reacted. Ron, by pulling her closer. Hermione, by breaking the kiss.

"Sorry, Harry," she said sincerely.

"Yeah," Ron nodded in agreement, "piss off, Harry." He went to go back to kissing Hermione again, but she pushed him back.

"At Christmas, Ron?" Something about the way she was frowning told him that it wouldn't be wise to try his luck again. With a sigh, he gave Hermione a quick kiss of the nose.

"I love you, Harry," Ron simpered in a falsely sweet voice.

"Piss off, Ron," came the reply.

Ron flashed Hermione a cheeky smile. "Happy?"

"Not quite," she sighed in a resigned kind of way.

Taking this as his cue to stop being the doting fiance and revert back to being an excitable child, Ron bounded off the bed and sat crossed-legged in front of the tree. Harry frowned at him, but he just smirked. Normally he and Hermione would show some restraint around Harry, especially with the three of them living together, but it was Christmas and Ron couldn't give a rat's arse about who else was in the room.

Sensing that his annoyance wasn't as important to everyone else as it was to him, Harry rolled his eyes. "Who's first?"

"Let's get the jumpers out of the way , shall we?" suggested Ron, picking up three lumpy-looking presents.

It wasn't long before Ron had thrown each 'mystery' present at each of their recipients and the sound of ripping paper had filled the room. Harry was the first to pull his woollen jumper over his head and admire the giant 'H' that now adorned his chest. Hermione was next and swapped the jumper that she was already wearing - the jumper that Ron had received last Christmas - for her new one.

Ron missed all of this, however, as he was too busy staring at his lap and the jumper that sat in the nest of shredded paper there. Something wasn't right, but Ron, as ever when he had a huge surge of emotion, couldn't think of the proper way to express himself. In fact, all he could manage was "Oh."

"What?"

He looked blankly up at Harry. "Mine's blue this year."

"So?"

Ron widened his eyes in an attempt to get his point across, but Harry just shook his head. "When has it ever been blue?" he pointed out in an almost breathless voice. He held the jumper up to show him the royal blue jumper with the traditional gold 'R'. Harry stared at the garment, finally appearing to understand why Ron was so shocked. For as long as he could remember and against his many protests, Ron's Christmas jumper had always been maroon. In fact, every article of clothing his mother had ever bought or made for him had been maroon. He had no idea why she had suddenly changed her mind or what it meant, but Ron was filled with a sense that he didn't often feel growing up - that he wasn't just another kid to his mum.

"What colour have you got, Hermione?" he asked, looking up at her.

She smiled at him and plucked the wool she was wearing away from her. At first, Ron didn't notice that she had changed or the letter on the front, so he was shocked by her reply. "Maroon."

Their eyes met and Ron knew that Hermione understood how he felt, probably a lot better than he did himself. He doubted there was anyone else who would not only know what this meant, but know that he wouldn't want to talk about it. Ron looked back at the jumper, grinned stupidly and pulled it over his pyjama top.

"Please don't take mine this year," he begged Hermione who simply hugged her knees over the cover and smiled at him.

"Wouldn't dream of it."

"Right," Harry said, interrupting the moment without realising there was one happening, "I suppose it should be ladies first." He picked up a heavy looking, rectangular present wrapped in plain red paper and tossed it gently onto the edge of the bed. Hermione picked it up, reading the tag as she sat back up properly. Ron recognised the wrapping paper from the roll Harry had managed to buy from the local newsagents last night and his suspicions as to who the present came from were confirmed when Hermione smiled at Harry.

"Merry Christmas, Hermione Granger," he said, looking a bit shy. Even now, nearly a decade after joining the wizarding world and having proper Christmases, Harry still didn't seem to be used to people actually caring about him. Hermione shot him a questioning look at the use of her full name and he shrugged. "Last chance I'm going to have to say it."

As he always did when their impending marriage was mentioned, Ron felt his ears go red and his chest swell. It had been nearly two months since he had proposed, but it still felt fresh. Hermione didn't seem to be any better; she had beckoned Harry forward and was now giving him a tight hug with him kneeling by the side of the bed.

"Thank you, Harry Potter," she said, pulling back. She sounded teary again (although it could have been the cold) and Ron wondered how the hell she dealt with being constantly emotional. "Now stop before I give you germs."

Harry laughed and sat back down to watch Hermione carefully pull the Sellotape away from the paper. Eventually she pulled out what Ron had suspected to see from the moment he had seen the present.

"_A book?_" he enthused in his well-practised impression of Hermione._ "However did you know?_"

Hermione gave him her well-practised I'm Not Rising To Your Bait look before smiling gratefully at Harry. "Thank you!"

From his position on the floor Ron could see from the title that the book was about werewolf rights. Hermione flipped the book over to read the blurb, her eyes alight with excitement for reasons Ron didn't ever want to understand. He glanced at Harry, who raised his eyebrows and shook his head.

"Don't start reading it now," he said in a mock-stern voice.

Hermione glanced up from the book and at them. "I wasn't going to," she said with a slight chuckle. Ron and Harry did nothing more than look at her sceptically. "I wasn't," she reaffirmed, sounding hurt.

"How about I give Ron his present now so you don't have to pay attention for a bit?" Harry suggested. Hermione went to protest, but Harry had already thrown another red lump at Ron's face. Ron caught it before it hit him and glared at Harry who merely shrugged.

Ron tore open the paper and found a small square of orange leather in front of him. He turned it over curiously and saw it was a wallet with the very familiar image of two black 'C's and a cannon ball on it.

"Cool!" Ron nodded appreciatively. He saw Harry watching him, grinning. "Now that I've got something to put in it," he chuckled.

Harry laughed but stopped when Hermione poked him in the shoulder.

"I've tried to stop everything he owns being bright orange," she hissed. Harry had the good manners to look guilty until she she stopped glaring at him to blow her nose and he winked at Ron.

Hermione banished her latest tissue with her wand and then used it to summon Harry's present. She handed it to him, still looking a little miffed. Harry first took off the silver bow that had been attached before proceeding to tear open the black and silver paper that Ron was sure he had seen in Hermione's room back in September.

A couple of seconds later, Harry was reading the side of a box that fit easily in his hand, a small crease between his eyebrows.

"It's a broom compass," Hermione blurted out. "I know you already have one, but this is a newer version. I did some research and apparently if you tell this one where you want to go, it can direct you there. According to _Which Broomstick _it's very reliable and is recommended by-"

"Relax, Hermione," Harry chuckled, "it's great. I love it, thank you."

The relief poured off Hermione as her face lit up. Ron knew how much she panicked over getting everyone the perfect presents, no matter what the occasion. He was just glad that she had got better at choosing them since the homework planner days. He loved her, but there was only so much lying through his teeth that he could do to make her feel better.

"I'd hug you again," Harry said, grimacing slightly, "but I don't want to."

Hermione sniffed, but thankfully didn't look offended. "I understand."

Ron picked up a thin, poorly wrapped package he knew to be his own work and threw it at Harry, who annoyingly managed to catch it.

"Can you two not give each other presents without trying to kill one another?" Hermione asked, exasperated.

"Nope," they both replied.

As Hermione rolled her eyes at their immaturity, Harry opened his present and then stared at it. Frowning, he lifted it up to show the other two a book entitled _Chastity: Why the Good Wizard Waits._

"What?" shrugged Ron innocently.

"Ron," Harry began gently, "you are aware that Ginny and I have already-"

"No."

"Several times."

"Blissfully unaware."

"We've been together - what? - two, three years now and-"

"-and I respect your decision to wait, Harry," Ron cut in seriously. "I've told you this before."

"Are you ever going to grow up, Ron?" Hermione sighed.

"What's that mean?"

Hermione shook her head as Harry inspected his new book.

"I mean, it's bad enough that you got me a _book,_" Harry moaned, unaware of Hermione's shocked expression, "but this is just-" He flicked through the pages and noticed something strange. After a quick glance at Ron's smirk, Harry opened the book to find that most of the middle of most of the pages had been cut out, creating a sort of box. Inside the pages was a foe glass, showing the ghostly images of several blurred outlines.

"Better?" Ron asked, arching a brow.

"Much," Harry laughed. "Cheers. Besides, the book would have only messed up the present Ginny got me."

"No prob-" Ron started before Harry's words caught up with him. "Wait - wha-?"

"Did you do that to a real book?" Hermione interrupted.

Ron gulped. "Er - a boring book?" he said weakly.

"I'm sure it wasn't a _boring book,_" she remarked acidly, "if you had taken the time to actually read it before you destroyed it."

"Since when were you interested in chastity?" he joked, sensing he may have really upset her with what he thought was a brilliant prank. Surely, he thought, a bit of humour could defuse the situation.

Judging by the scowl he received, it couldn't.

"Since about now," she replied coldly.

"Did I mention that I got you a present too?" Ron grabbed the package closest to him and waved it at her, hoping it was a good enough distraction. With an unimpressed look, Hermione took it from him and began unwrapping it calmly.

Nerves started to set in and Ron shifted uncomfortably. He had never known what to get Hermione for Christmas and birthdays when they were friends. Since they had been together it had only got worse. Not only did he have to get her something extra special, he had an anniversary to deal with as well, not to mention Valentine's Day. This year the whole thing was a nightmare seeing as he was now her fiance. With every bit of tape she unpeeled, Ron became more edgy. Why was it taking her so long? What had he been thinking when he had bought it anyway? He had to say something. There was no way he could take that disappointed look that was only seconds away now.

"It's not much, but -"

"Don't start," Hermione snapped.

"What?" questioned Ron bemused.

"Whatever you have got me will be perfect," she said in a restrained voice, "but every time you get me a present, you start talking it down because you didn't have to sell your liver to buy it. I am going to love it regardless because it's from you."

Ron felt himself blush at the heated look she gave him. It was unnatural how sexy she could be when angry, even with a cold.

"Although you saw him at work's Christmas do," Harry reasoned, flicking one of the tree's baubles absentmindedly. "His liver isn't worth shit anymore."

Not keen on reliving the embarrassment of him getting drunk, spilling a drink down himself and then falling over while being completely stationary, Ron didn't comment and watched Hermione as she lifted a lump of periwinkle blue fabric up and held it in front of her. Feeling slightly nauseous still, Ron tried to work out whether the look of blank shock on Hermione's face was a good, bad or very bad thing.

"Oh, Ron," she whispered, still staring at the dress in her hands. "But we said we wouldn't spend much on each other." She turned to him, her expression unreadable as far as Ron could tell. "We have a wedding to pay for! We can't-"

"Don't you like it?" he cut in, trying not to sound too disappointed, but he strongly suspected that he had failed miserably.

Hermione was silent for a moment as she blinked back tears and Ron knew he had screwed everything up.

"I - it's beautiful," she finally choked out and Ron felt all of his muscles, even ones he didn't know existed, relax. "But we can't afford to spend this kind of money on-"

"It was in the sale," he butted in hastily. "It was actually dirt cheap."

Harry snorted. "You lucked out with this bloke, Hermione."

Ron chose to ignore his so-called best mate.

"I-I saw it," he explained, "and-and I knew you liked the colour because you wore it-"

"At the Yule Ball," gasped Hermione, her eyes widening. She looked back at the dress and swallowed as a single tear fell.

"Yeah," Ron said slowly, unsure of how to take this latest mood swing. They were always worse when she was ill. "Thought I'd have half a chance of you actually liking it." He chuckled a little, but Hermione didn't appear to be listening; she just carried on staring at the dress. Ron had stopped breathing by this point. While she had said she liked it, she hadn't really said thank you or acted in any way normal since opening his present and he had no idea how to take this. It seemed an age of waiting before she cleared her throat.

"Harry?" she called, not looking at him. "Three second warning."

"Three - what?" Ron asked, completely confused. He went to share a bewildered look with Harry, only to find the Boy Who Lived was now the Boy Intensely Studying the Christmas Tree. Before Ron could put two and two together, he felt something grab the front of his new jumper and kiss him soundly on the mouth. Once the shock had warn off, Ron's hands found their way into hair that he was supremely thankful was Hermione's. She was kissing him with such ferocity that Ron was a little scared. Normally this kind of kiss was the result of an argument and ended in mind-blowing sex. Ron guessed he should have been more concerned about Harry being in the room, but he had more important things to be dealing with - namely Hermione's tongue and how it was definitely worth spending the next week in bed, sneezing his brains out, for this.

Just as Ron started to forget his own name, Hermione made a strange noise and bit his lip a bit harder than he would've liked. It wasn't until she had pulled away, looking mortified, that he registered something sticky on his right cheek and realised she had just sneezed.

"Sorry!" she gasped, hastily cleaning his cheek with a tissue and blushing furiously.

"S'alright," Ron grimaced. "It's in sickness and in health after all." He gave a small smile to show that he wasn't all that bothered. The whole incident was undoubtedly not the best thing that had ever happened to him, but, as she wiped her own nose, still looking embarrassed, Ron found he didn't mind. In fact, it was sort of cute in a weird way. A very weird way.

This whole love thing really had made him barmy.

"That," Harry stated disdainfully, "is the most disgusting thing I've ever seen."

With a groan, Hermione buried her head in Ron's neck and he wrapped his arms around her.

"If you think that's bad," he laughed, planting a kiss on Hermione's head, "you should see what other bodily fluids we can exchange."

Harry gagged as Hermione slapped his arm, still hiding her face.

"Can we just do the last present so we can hurry up and go to the Burrow?" Harry requested, still sounding repulsed. "That way I can talk to decent human beings while you two can do - whatever."

Hermione, looking as though she would welcome the ground swallowing her whole, pulled away from Ron and used her wand to summon a large, square present. She passed it to Ron with a shy smile. He admired the pristine wrapping for a moment before ripping it to shreds.

When the paper was no more, Ron saw his own face grinning up at him. He blinked before realising that he was seeing a photograph of himself from about a year ago with his arms around Hermione. In fact, it was an entire photo frame, the size of his whole upper body, filled with pictures of him, Hermione, Harry and various other family members and friends, waving and smiling. Stunned, Ron sat on the edge of the bed, next to Hermione, and studied the photos in more detail.

There were several from various family gatherings, as well a hand-full from when they were still at Hogwarts. As he stared, the photos changed to whole other set.

"Do you like it?" Hermione asked nervously, biting her lip.

"Love it." Ron smiled at her. "And I love you." He kissed her briefly on the lips before looking back at his present. "Harry, you've got to see this."

Intrigued, Harry moved to sit on the other side of Ron to look at the photo frame, as Ron spotted one of him and Hermione in the orchard by the Burrow, snogging.

"That one is my favourite," he announced, pointing it out to her. "Although why can you only see the back of my head?"

"Hermione, this is incredible," said Harry, smiling at one of the three of them after one of their OWL exams. "Where did you find all of these?"

"I have my secrets," she answered with a wink.

"I mean," Ron continued, ignoring them, "surely there's another one of us kissing from a different angle?"

"Is that all you care about?" Hermione asked. She tried to sound disapproving, but her smirk gave her away.

"'Course not," replied Ron, nudging her gently. "I just think it'd be better if we could see our mouths. That's the good part after all."

"Not for the rest of us," Harry grumbled.

"Ooh! Look at that one!" Hermione said cheerily, clearly trying to stop the discussion about her and Ron kissing going any further.

Ron followed the direction of her finger and saw one of the three of them, dressed in Hogwarts robes, by the window of the Gryffindor common room. Hermione was smiling properly at the camera, while he and Harry were pulling faces and shoving each other behind her back.

"Ha! Look how titchy Harry is!" Ron chortled. "When's that from?"

"I think it's our second year," Harry said with a frown.

"Can't be," Hermione dismissed. "I'm not petrified or a cat."

"Good point."

"Now _that_ is second year," Harry said, pointing to one of the three of them by the lake. "Lockhart is in the background."

Ron sighed. "He's so dreamy..."

Hermione shoved him hard enough for him to nearly knock Harry off the other end of the bed. Once they were all upright again, the three of them silently watched the happier moments of their past. Ron marvelled at how bad his hair looked when he was fourteen and how scrawny Harry was when they had first met. Most of all, he focused on the pictures of his younger self, gazing in what he had thought at the time was a subtle way at the witch that would soon become his wife. Amongst the photos of him beaming proudly with his arms wrapped around her, were many of a boy, clearly itching to do the same, but just grinning awkwardly instead.

Just as he was about to point a particularly good example of this from what looked like Christmas '95, Ron spotted one from the day Gryffindor had won the Quidditch Cup without the help of their captain. Seventeen year old Ron was so overjoyed with the accomplishment that, as he brandished the Cup in front of the camera, he failed to see seventeen year old Hermione stood next to him, her eyes filled with such admiration that if he had just turned around, he would've seen that she had loved him even then.

"Do you think they'd believe us if we told them everything then?" Hermione asked softly. Neither of the boys needed to clarify what she meant.

"No," snorted Harry. "It would terrify them."

Ron slung an arm around Hermione's shoulders and gave her a squeeze. "It was more fun without knowing how it would end up, don't you think?"

"Yeah," Harry said sarcastically, "it was all a pleasant surprise."

They all laughed as the photos changed again and Hermione leant her head against Ron.

"Merry Chris- ach-choo!"

"Way to ruin the moment, Granger," laughed Harry as got up and waved his wand at the wrapping paper that was strewn all over the room, sending it into a neat pile.

Ron watched as Hermione blew her nose again and kissed her temple. She looked up at him through bloodshot eyes, sniffed and smiled. It was fairly undeniable that she really did look disgusting, but Ron didn't care as he gave her another soft kiss on the lips. He loved this woman, even when she had gross stuff coming out of her nose. He wanted to be with her and look after her. He wanted to spend every sick day laughing at her funny-sounding voice and then guiltily bringing her soup in bed to make up for it. He wanted to let her lounge about on the settee with the duvet all day and bring her tea on demand. He'd hold her hair out of her face when she was sick and not even complain once.

Well, maybe once. Or twice. But he'd still do it. And he'd still want to kiss her - after she had brushed her teeth, of course.

In fact, even though it was Christmas Day, his favourite of the year, and he was probably going to be up half the night because Hermione couldn't sleep, he couldn't give a shit because he was the bloke that she had chosen to deal with her in sickness and in health.

And that, in a strange way, Ron thought as Hermione's nose made another horrible, squelching noise, was love.


	5. Chapter 5

_A/N: Here is another chapter of Sunday, waiting for you to say, "why are most of these Hermione POVs?"_

_Disclaimer: It is a truth universally acknowledged that J.K Rowling owns Harry Potter and that this line is parodied too often for everyone's taste._

* * *

The alarm went off and Hermione's hand automatically darted out of the covers to turn it off. She had a very important meeting today about her latest proposal to change laws regarding international wizard-goblin relations and could not be late under any circumstances. The good news was that the meeting was happening at five in the afternoon. The bad news was that it was happening in the city of Suva and she would have to leave before four in the morning to get there on time.

She blinked wearily a few times and mentally shook herself awake, fighting the desperate urge to forget everything and go back to sleep. After a few seconds though, Hermione was sadly alert enough to know that this was a terrible idea and that she really did have to get up.

Despite going to bed very early that evening and telling Ron he would be better off sleeping in the spare room so she didn't wake him up, Hermione discovered her husband was slumbering behind her, his arm hugging her close to him. With a sigh, she gently tried to extract herself from his grip, only for Ron to squeeze her closer.

Hermione rolled her eyes and tried again. This time Ron shifted his leg over hers as well as pulling her back. This always happened when she tried to get out of bed when he was asleep. Going to the loo in the middle of the night was a very risky business. Hermione supposed she should find it sweet that even when he was dead to the world, Ron wanted her close. Instead she was incredibly frustrated. If she couldn't break free soon, she wouldn't have time to check through her notes before she left, potentially ruining everything.

Still moving slowly, Hermione tried to look over her shoulder at Ron. Through her hair and the darkness of the early morning she could make out his open mouth and long nose, breathing softly. She attempted to move away again, but he still stopped her. Even though his fringe was covering his eyes, she could still tell he frowned for a second before his face relaxed once more. Hermione smiled at the sight of him looking so peaceful. Waking him up was so hard when he looked like this.

She really did have to get up though…

Changing tactics, Hermione tried to shuffle down the bed. It was most undignified, but desperate times called for desperate measures. If she could sneak her way below his arm, then Hermione hoped she would be able to get out of bed from there. After a few agonising moments, in which Hermione managed to get her head level with Ron's chest without him moving, she heard him make a small noise in his sleep. Heart pounding, she stopped and waited to see if he did anything else. When he didn't, Hermione continued her journey south, eternally grateful that no one could see her.

Just when she thought she was safe, Ron made a whinging noise and started moving his head forward. He sniffed and tried once again to bury himself in the pillow. Hermione stopped breathing and hoped he would stop, but he didn't. Frowning once more, Ron's head bent forward until he reached her hair. Knowing full well what he was doing, Hermione gave up on her plan and waited. Sure enough, not ten seconds later, Ron had moved so their heads were level once more and his face was buried in her hair. She heard him sigh contentedly before relaxing again, still cuddled up behind her.

If Ron was as clingy as this when he was awake, Hermione thought, trying desperately not to get angry over what was really quite a lovely thing, she would have probably have moved to a different country and changed her name in the hopes of escaping him by now. It wasn't that she didn't appreciate that he loved her; it was just that he was making her late and Hermione Weasley was many things, but late was never one of them.

A quick glance at the alarm clock's glow in the dark hands told her that she had been awake for ten minutes now and was no closer to getting in the shower than she was then. Making the executive decision that she had done everything within her power to not disrupt her loving and annoying husband's sleeping pattern, Hermione elbowed him in the ribs.

"Ron!" she whispered urgently to no reply. "Ron, wake up!"

Hermione was awarded with nothing. Not even one measly groan. Hoping that he wouldn't be too angry if she left bruises, she elbowed him harder. "Ron!"

Three more assaults later, Ron finally grunted to show that he was at least somewhat aware of his surroundings.

"Ron, please let me get up," Hermione pleaded. "I have that meeting, remember?"

There was a silence that told her Ron had gone back to sleep already.

"RON!" she snapped. She felt his body jolt in surprise as he grunted again. "Let me get up!"

"No," Ron mumbled, moving closer to her and resting his forehead on her shoulder.

"What do you mean '_no_'?" Hermione hissed. "Let go of me."

Ron tightened his grip again.

"Right."

Patience completely worn away by this point, Hermione tried to pull Ron's arms away from her, but he managed to keep them in place. A few kicks and struggling violently in his arms only earned Hermione an extra few inches towards the edge of their bed that Ron quickly made up anyway. She rolled over with difficulty to face him and found his eyes were still closed and he was still very much asleep. Hermione cursed his auror training for making him stronger than his lanky frame let on.

"Let me out!" she growled at him. He ignored her, so Hermione tried pushing against his chest, hoping that the duel action of straining against his grip and shoving him would work. In fact, for a moment, her plan worked perfectly and Hermione managed to put some space between them. Unfortunately it wasn't long before Ron realised and tried to bring her back to him.

She had already weakened his grip and, foolishly, Hermione thought she could taste victory. Ron's face contorted as he realised he was losing his wife and went for another strategy; instead of pulling her towards him, he decided to go to her. With an angry sounding groan, Ron rolled forward onto his front – directly on top of Hermione.

Caught off guard, Hermione was powerless to stop this and was soon being squashed under the love of her life.

"This isn't fair," she wheezed, trying to free her arms. "You're a lot heavier than me!"

"'xactly," grunted Ron. His head found the pillow under her shoulder and made himself comfortable. "Now go back to sleep."

"Ron, I can't," she replied, still struggling to breath. "The meeting? Fiji?"

"Don't care," Ron yawned.

"Well – you – should!" Hermione punctuated each word with a slap on his back. Ron made no indication that he felt it though and she was horrified to discover that he was somehow managing to go back to sleep.

Breathing heavily through her nose, Hermione closed her eyes and tried to think of a way out of this before she lost the feeling in her right arm completely. It was bad enough when Ron crushed her after sex, but at least normally she got to have sex before the crushing happened.

It was then, as Ron snored gently, that Hermione had a brilliant idea. There was only one thing that she ever did that Ron _never _ignored.

Knowing that what she was planning probably broke some kind of feminism rule and not caring because she had twenty four pages of notes to read, a shower to have and breakfast to eat, Hermione started nibbling on Ron's ear. It wasn't long before he moaned a little.

"Ron," she whispered, making sure her lips never lost contact with the shell of his ear, "wake up."

Awkwardly turning her head, Hermione began kissing his neck and Ron groaned. She knew it was working when one of his hands moved to her hip and squeezed.

"Myknee," he mumbled, just as he turned his head to kiss her sloppily on the edge of her mouth. Suppressing the wave of affection she felt as she moved to kiss him properly, Hermione tried to focus on her plan. Still… She loved lazy morning kisses where neither of really knew what they were doing. There was no reason she couldn't enjoy this a little.

It wasn't long before the kisses weren't as lazy and Ron lifted a bit of his weight off of her. When one of his hands moved to her hair, Hermione seized her chance and rolled him onto his back, the momentum carrying her on top of him. As she celebrated her triumph inside, Hermione carried on kissing her husband as his hand crept under her pyjama top. Knowing Ron was distracted, Hermione opened her eyes and spotted her wand on the bedside table. She grabbed it just as Ron started kissing her neck.

When he reached her collar bone, Hermione began regretting her decision, but knew it was too late to back out now. With her left hand, she found Ron's right and threaded her fingers between his and held in out, away from their bodies. Once it was above his head, being pressed into the pillow, Hermione aimed her wand and flicked it, sending a rope flying out of the end and tying Ron's wrist to the bed post. Ron stopped his ministrations and looked up at her, his eyes half-closed and smirked.

"Bit early for that, isn't it?" he remarked, his voice still gravelly from sleep.

Hermione pretended to ponder this. "Hmm. Maybe you're right."

Before Ron registered her words, Hermione had flicked her wand again, tying his left wrist to the other bed post.

Ron quirked his eyebrows, his eyes flashing with untold joy and anticipation as Hermione leant forwards and kissed him gently on the lips. "See you tonight, sweetheart," she whispered against them before climbing off him.

"W-what?" asked Ron, nonplussed. "Where're you going?"

"Fiji," Hermione replied lightly. "Shouldn't be more than a couple of hours."

Hermione smirked as Ron just blinked several times in response and made her way towards the bedroom door.

"You can't leave me here," laughed Ron as she turned the handle. "I have work in the morning!"

Unable to resist, Hermione faced him again as she opened the door and adopted an expression of mock-concern. "Well, you better hope I'm back before then or Harry might come looking for you."

And, before Ron could do anything more than look truly terrified, Hermione left the room, shaking with silent giggles.


	6. Chapter 6

_A/N: Wild plot bunny appeared! HalfASlug used will power! It failed! Wild plot bunny used adorable! It's super-effective! HalfASlug fainted!_

_Yes, that is how I see my life. I like to think I'm currently too scared to go into the Rock Tunnel._

_Anyway, quick note about the last chapter (sorry if you have read this already - continue onto main story) - Some people thought it was very cruel of Hermione to leave Ron there while she went to Fiji and, yes, that would have been very cruel of her which is why she didn't. She went and had breakfast/shower/whatever and then came back to release him, only to find he was already asleep. I thought it was funnier to leave it where it was though - sorry. But yeah, brightest witch of her age, not biggest bitch._

_And onto the next chapter that I have a feeling some people will have an issue with as well but hey I live dangerously now._

_Disclaimer: J.K Rowling owns Harry Potter but one day dreams of writing for Flaps, the woman's magazine._

* * *

With a loud sigh, Ron kicked his shoes off, sending them in the vague direction of the little shelf thing Hermione had bought to store their shoes. As he removed his cloak, Ron looked at his shoes and came to the difficult conclusion that he should probably pick them up and put them neatly onto the thing. It would only take two seconds of his time, really. No need to get Hermione all worked up for no reason. Eventually he gave into the guilt and nudged his shoes with his foot until they were touching the dark wood. At least this way it looked like he had tried to be tidy.

Ron made his way into the living room and was surprised to find it empty. There were a few toys scattered across the floor and a picture book on the coffee table, but other than that the room looked how it did when he left for work a couple of hours ago. He popped his head into the kitchen and saw that it was just as empty in there. While it had only been three hours since he had seen Hermione and Rose, Ron couldn't help but feel a little upset that his return home had been met with nothing. A glance at the clock on the mantel piece told him that it was an hour after Rosie's bedtime, but Hermione normally had dinner ready for him after his Sunday shift.

Since Rose had been born nearly eighteen months ago, Ron had needed a job that offered more regular hours than being an auror did. What had started out as a joke one night from George, somehow turned into Ron co-owning Wheezes. Hermione had hated the idea of him 'sacrificing his career' at first but it had been for the best. He could do most of his work from home during the week so he could stay home with Rosie while Hermione went to work. Plus this way Hermione could go straight back to work. Rose was only a couple of days old when Ron had caught her flicking through a report she had asked to be sent to her because the baby was asleep, the house was clean and she was bored.

In fact the person most upset with Ron leaving his job as an auror had been Harry. If Ron was honest with himself Harry had probably been the hardest person to tell. They had been working together since they were teenagers and they were always together at school before that. Ron leaving would have been the end of all that.

Well, it would have been if a month after handing in his notice Ron hadn't moaned to Harry about missing his old job. He loved all the time with Rose and wasn't going to give it up for anything, but he felt restless all the time. While looking after a small child was tiring, Ron still longed for time spent running around with adults and not having to tidy up afterwards. It was suspiciously soon after that that Harry had rescheduled the auror training schedules around so that there was a few extra evening lessons on Sundays. Apparently Harry's superiors and the trainees loved the idea of them being taught by a former auror, someone with real experience in the field. Ron loved the idea of shooting a few curses and strategizing pretend raids for a couple of hours a week. Hermione loved the idea of none of it being dangerous and getting Ron out of the house before he went mad. It worked out perfectly for everyone, really.

Turning the lights on as he went, Ron started making his way upstairs in search of his family. Rose had been having trouble getting to sleep recently and Hermione sometimes went for a quick walk with her in the pushchair to settle her so Ron wasn't too worried. As he reached the upstairs landing he felt a slight disturbance in the air and knew that they were both in. Hermione would have only put up the magical barrier to stop Rose getting downstairs if they were.

Sure enough, when Ron opened the door to his daughter's room he saw her tiny body sprawled out under the covers. It felt like a great weight was lifted from him, one that he didn't realise was even there, as he silently crossed the room and brushed her thick red hair out of her eyes. There was nothing like her in the world. When Hermione was pregnant everyone had told him how precious his own child would feel, but no words could describe how he felt about her. It really was as if she was the centre of his entire universe and he lived to keep her smiling. He'd laughed at Harry when he had told him about how excited he was when James had taken his first step, but he had welled up a little when Rose had taken hers.

Not really wanting to leave her but still needing to find Hermione, Ron kissed Rose softly on the cheek and left the room quietly as to not wake her. Once he had gently closed the door, Ron went to his bedroom and found the other female that made his life perfect, also asleep. Chuckling to himself, Ron climbed onto the bed and lay down behind her. She shifted slightly so he kissed her temple and wrapped an arm around her middle.

"'Lo," she croaked sleepily, lacing her fingers through his. The moment their hands were joined, a slight crease appeared between Hermione's eyebrows. Slowly, her eyes flickered open and look down at their hands. Hermione's breath hitched and she quickly turned to look at Ron in alarm.

The moment their eyes met, Ron smiled.

Hermione, however, screamed, threw herself away from him and fell off the bed.

Straight away, Ron clambered to the edge of the bed in concern. "Hermione, what-?"

"Harry, what are you doing?" she screamed at him, getting to her feet.

"Nothing, I was just-" Ron started in confusion when one word she had said hit him – _Harry. "S_hit."

Instead of chastising him for his language, Hermione snatched her wand from the bedside table and pointed it directly at Ron's heart. Her expression was somewhere between anger and fear and Ron knew that he was in trouble.

"Hey, hey, hey, no wands," he pleaded, holding his hands up in surrender. "It's me! It's Ron!"

"Prove it," she growled menacingly.

Ron cast his eyes around the small room, looking for something to prove he was himself. His eyes fell on the full length mirror by the wardrobe, but turned away from it quickly. Seeing Harry Potter kneeling on his bed in front of Hermione wasn't exactly a pleasant sight.

"Erm… You kept Rita Skeeter in a jar for a while once," he said, hoping the memory of her triumph over the reporter would make her more sympathetic.

"Harry could know that," she dismissed. Apparently his plan hadn't worked. If anything she looked more suspicious. Despite being more scared than he would ever admit to being, Ron had to admire his wife's commitment to security. If someone had broken into their house, disguised as Harry, they probably would have researched him. Although getting into bed with Hermione would have been a massive mistake. Still, that was the hypothetical intruder's problem.

Ron had a similar problem but he was also innocent; it was just a case of proving it. He just had to think of something only he and Hermione knew. Of course, as soon as he had thought this, his thoughts had turned a little dirty and he smirked.

"On our honeymoon," he said slowly and deliberately, "you asked me dress up like-"

"Don't you dare finish that sentence," Hermione interrupted harshly.

"Why?" asked Ron, baffled. Surely the end of that sentence would prove it was really him? No one else knew how it ended. Hermione had made sure of that.

"I can't have our honeymoon talked about in Harry's voice," she answered with a slight blush.

"So you're accepting that it's me?"

Hermione appeared to ponder this for a bit before sighing. "Yes." Thankfully she lowered her wand, although she still looked annoyed. "But why on Earth do you look like that?"

"Part of the training." Ron shrugged as he moved off the bed and towards her. "Disguises. Security questions. They had to work out which one was the real Harry," he explained. It had been fun really. They'd only caught him out by asking what the latest Chudley Cannons score was. He had apparently flinched while Harry replied "300-0" without so much as batting an eyelid.

"So why are you still Polyjuiced?" Hermione asked dropping her wand back onto the bedside table.

"I thought it would have worn off by now," Ron replied sheepishly.

"You could have checked."

"Sorry." Ron gave her his best apologetic smile and watched as she exhaled in a way that he always took to mean he was forgiven – well, for now at least. "How's Rosie been?" he asked, hoping to detract from his appearance.

"Energetic," she answered ruefully. "She took forever to get to sleep. I was going to start dinner but I was exhausted, sorry."

"Hey, it's no problem," said Ron softly. "You are allowed to stop occasionally."

This earned Ron a small smile. He was still kind of disappointed about having to wait for dinner, but she really did look drained. There was no way he was stupid or selfish enough to complain. However, he could still see in Hermione's eyes that she felt like she had somehow let him down so Ron pulled her gently into a hug. As her arms wrapped around his middle, Ron went to rest his head on top of Hermione's like he always did, but found he was much too short. Instead he settled for kissing her on the cheek.

As soon as he moved though, Hermione backed away. "What are you doing?"

"Kissing my wife?" Ron replied slowly.

Hermione laughed and fully extracted herself out of his arms. "Not while you're still Harry, you're not."

"Not even a little one?" complained Ron.

"Don't be disgusting."

Hermione went to walk away but Ron held her back. "It's still me," he pointed out.

"No," she refused, "it's too weird."

"But it is still me!" he repeated. This wasn't funny anymore. He'd been home nearly ten minutes, both of them were in and neither of them had given him a kiss. It wasn't fair. Rose was asleep so it was up to Hermione.

"I couldn't care less!" laughed Hermione, folding her arms. "How would you feel if I looked like Ginny?"

"That's different," Ron said, watching as Hermione straightened out the duvet. "She's my sister."

Hermione turned around with her hands on her hips and a no nonsense expression on her face. "And Harry might as well be my brother, so no." She glared at him in a way that told him the discussion was over.

"Okay."

The moment he had spoken Hermione narrowed her eyes. "What are you planning?"

Ron shrugged. "Nothing."

The two of them stared at each other, Hermione suspicious and Ron fighting a smirk.

"You wouldn't dare," Hermione eventually whispered.

Unable to hold back much longer, Ron pounced. With a shriek, Hermione tried to jump out of the way, but Ron was too fast and she was soon engulfed in his arms while he made exaggerated kissing noises.

"Ron!" Hermione cried. "Get off me!"

"Not until you kiss me."

Hermione somehow managed to turn around so she had her back to Ron and had her arms over her face to protect herself. Ron tried to arch over her like he normally could but Harry was much too short. Knowing it was a dirty trick and not caring either way, Ron started tickling her, causing her to bend forward and screech with laughter.

"This isn't funny!" came Hermione's voice from somewhere within the tangle of limbs and hair.

"Stop laughing then."

Ron tried his best to continue making kissing noises through his laughter, while he could feel Hermione's resistance grow weaker as she too succumbed to giggling. What with work and Rose, it had been a few weeks since they had really had a play fight and Ron missed them. Watching Hermione let go and laugh hysterically was always worth any minor injuries he picked up along the way.

Just as Ron was recalling the time he had managed to fall off the bed, dislocate his shoulder and had to stop Hermione crying and apologising before she could fix it for him, a small fist came from nowhere and hit him in the face. His glasses fell off as Ron let go of Hermione and rubbed his cheek. He heard Hermione gasp and could just make out her hands covering her mouth in the blur his vision had become.

"Oh, Ron, I am so sorry-"

"S'alright."

"I didn't mean it. Normally that's where your shoulder is so-"

"I'm fine."

"I should have thought."

"I'm _fine._"

"Why are you squinting like that? Have I given you a concussion? I've given you a concussion."

At the thought of Hermione's wayward punch giving him something as serious as concussion, Ron laughed.

"He's delirious. Oh no," panicked Hermione. "Ron? Ron, can you-?"

"Hermione!" interrupted Ron. "You barely touched me. Can you pick my glasses up?"

"Oh thank goodness," gasped Hermione. She gave him a swift hug around the neck and bent to pick the dropped glasses up. As Ron rubbed his neck, he realised that she had just given him the type of hug she usually gave Harry and bristled. He wasn't used to friend-hugs. He didn't like friend-hugs. Friends-hugs kind of hurt, he thought, rubbing his neck.

Soon a Hermione-shaped blur was back in his eye line and carefully put the glasses on for him. When he could see Hermione smiling at him properly, Ron grinned back. "How does Harry deal with being blind? It'd do my nut in."

"He isn't _blind_. He's-"

Ron never learnt what was wrong with Harry's eyes as he had started tickling Hermione again.

"S-s-s-sto-op!" she shrieked. "I'll hu-u-u-rt you!"

"Like to see you try!"

Hermione flashed him an insulted scowl and started pinching him.

Without his height advantage and the possibility of going all but blind, Ron found it much more difficult to gain any kind of upper hand. He tried capturing both of Hermione's wrists in one of his hands but even they were too small. Part of Ron quite liked the idea of Harry being perfectly suited to having his arse handed to him by a girl, but most of him was being pinched so Ron went for the big guns.

It wasn't hard to break through Hermione's defences to grab her either side waist and pick her up. Her legs wrapped around him on instinct and Ron took a few steps forward to hold her against the opposite wall.

Panting from exertion and grinning, Ron looked at Hermione. For a split second she looked scandalised but then her face broke into a huge smile and she was laughing.

"We're like children," she chuckled, dropping her head onto his shoulder.

"Worse, I'd say."

Hermione lifted her head to look down at him and Ron was struck by how good she looked, face alight with mischief, eyes lit up with happiness and all his…

"Don't look at me like that!" Hermione scolded him suddenly.

"Like what?" exclaimed Ron, affronted.

"You know how," she shot back. "All cocky and randy. I do _not_ want the image of Harry looking at me like that in my head."

"I can't help what my face is doing," Ron whined.

"You can." Hermione studied him as Ron huffed. "It's so weird seeing your expressions on his face," she mused, stroking his cheek.

"It was weirder seeing yours on it." Ron smiled at the memory from all of those years ago. He could distinctly remember seeing Harry's face pinch in irritation when Hermione overheard Tonks swear and smiling affectionately at her. It took him a few minutes to realise he was gazing longingly at Harry and looked away quickly before anyone else saw.

At the time it had been confusing as hell. The idea that he still fancied Hermione when she was _Harry_ had disturbed him more than anything, but now he was older he had learnt that it was probably being able to recognise her quirks that made him so happy. Well, he hoped it was that and had nothing to do with him fancying Harry anyway.

Now they had been married for years Ron was certain he knew all of her habits and ticks, much like she was willing to believe that it was him even though he was Polyjuced. When he thought about it, he was sure he could pick up some of Rosie's traits too. The idea filled him with so much joy that his life was as about as perfect as he could ever hope it to be – the Cannons' form excluded – that Ron forgot the situation they were still in and went to kiss Hermione again.

"Ron!" Hermione pushed against his shoulders to keep him away.

"Sorry," he said, still grinning, "I keep forgetting."

Hermione shook her head in exasperation. "Are you going to put me down?"

"Nope," Ron replied simply. "Not letting you down 'til I get my kiss."

"You are not getting your kiss until you are yourself again."

"Well, get comfortable," teased Ron.

"I am."

Ron wiggled his eyebrows at her. "Sure you don't want a piece of the Boy Who Lived?"

"No," replied Hermione primly. She managed to keep a straight face but Ron saw the corners of her mouth twitch. "I always thought his best friend was the looker," she added.

Sighing heavily, Ron shook his head. "It's true," he admitted. "Can't go anywhere with that bloke. Birds are all over him."

"Really?" repeated Hermione as she arched an eyebrow.

"Really." Ron nodded. "Never looks at any of them though because he's got this fucktastic wife at home," he added with what he thought was a smile but definitely came out as a leer.

"Eugh, stop saying things like that," Hermione grumbled. "It's disturbing."

"She is bloody gorgeous though," insisted Ron.

Hermione groaned and buried her face in Ron's neck. "I can't look at you anymore," came her muffled voice. "Tell me when you're back to normal."

Chuckling, Ron planted a kiss on her temple and gave her a small squeeze. He had to admit, Harry may be tiny but he wasn't weak. His arms weren't even close to being tired.

"By the way, if you get an erection, I_ will_ hex it off."

At this Ron let out a belly laugh; although the idea was kind of disconcerting for him as well.

"You wouldn't be able to tell the difference if you did though," he told her seriously, earning him another smack in the shoulder.

"Oh, that is vile," moaned Hermione. She buried her face further into Ron's neck.

"I'm going to tell Harry you said his dick was vile," Ron teased, poking her in the side.

"And how, may I ask," Hermione said starchily, "are you going to explain the circumstances surrounding my comment?"

"Well, as we do every Sunday evening, we were discussing the many benefits of my own impressive-"

"Unca Habby?"

Ron jumped slightly and turned to find the source of the interruption. Stood in the doorway was a tiny figure in a baby blue nightdress, covered in freckles and staring at the couple with some confusion. Ron smiled at the sight of his daughter, but it soon turned to a wince when he felt Hermione's nails dig into his shoulder. He turned to her and saw her wide-eyed expression, causing him to realise what was happening.

Not only were they in a slightly compromising position, but as far as Rose knew her mummy was in a slightly compromising position with her Uncle Harry.

Horrified, Ron unceremoniously dropped Hermione, causing her to stagger slightly, before he darted to the doorway and dropped to his knees.

"No, Rosie Posie," said Ron, placing his hands on her shoulders, "it's Daddy."

Rose stared at him for a moment, frowning. She might have got stuck with his hair, complexion and eyes, but her mannerisms were all Hermione. It was the only way you could tell she was even related to her sometimes. "No." Rose shook her head. "Unca Habby," she repeated, this time poking the famous scar on Ron's forehead.

Ron turned to Hermione for support. He had no idea what he was meant to say. Thankfully she heard his silent plea and was at his side in a flash. She ran her fingers through Rose's wavy hair to get her to stop poking Ron.

"No, darling," she cooed, "it's Daddy being silly."

Frowning even more than before, Rose looked from Ron to Hermione before violently shaking her head. "No!" she shouted, stamping her foot for good measure. "Unca Habby! Unca Habby!"

"No, no, no!" Ron insisted. Before he could think of how he was meant to explain this to a toddler, Rose started to become strangely distorted. He glanced at his hands and saw his fingers lengthening and freckles appearing from nowhere as his skin paled. "See?" he said, ripping the redundant glasses off. "Daddy!"

Ron's smile froze as he waited with baited breath for Rose to react. Eventually her face lit up and she dived at him, hugging him tightly around the neck.

"DADDY!"

"There we go!" choked Ron, standing up and bringing Rose with him. "What are you doing out of bed, missy?" he chastised, poking her nose.

"No sleep," Rose grumbled before yawning louder than you would expect from someone her size.

Hermione laughed lightly. "Someone looks sleepy to me."

"No," Rose maintained as she broke into another yawn.

"I'll take her," Hermione said to Ron, rubbing his arm. "You get out of your uniform."

Ron looked down and saw his uniform was now several inches too short for him. It was like being fifteen again.

"Nah, I wanna do it. I want to hear about my little girl's day," he said, turning back to Rose, who smiled sleepily at him. "Say n'night to Mummy."

Ron turned a little so Rose was facing Hermione. Seemingly too tired for words now, Rose waved her pudgy arm, nearly hitting Ron's nose and making Hermione chuckle.

"Goodnight, sweetheart," she whispered before kissing her.

Ron turned again so he was facing Hermione, Rose cradled between them. "And a kiss for Daddy?" he asked cheekily.

Tearing her attention away from Rose, Hermione rolled her eyes in what Ron thought was a very over the top way, before leaning in to finally give Ron the kiss he had been waiting for since he had got in.

Unfortunately Rose had other ideas and hit Hermione's shoulder. "No kiss Unca Habby," she chided, glaring at her mother.

Ron couldn't help but laugh at the incredulous look on Hermione's face.

"Oh, this is going to take forever to explain to her," she fretted.

"She sees Teddy do stuff like that." Ron shrugged. "Not my fault you still find me irresistible even when I'm hideous," he smirked.

Hermione gave him an unimpressed look. "I'm going to make start on dinner."

"No. You still owe me a kiss," Ron reminded her as walked down the hallway, "and these kinds of things accrue interest."

"How much interest can it possible accrue in two minutes?" Hermione asked exasperatedly.

"You'll find out once I've put Rosie down. I will warn you though," Ron said, opening the door to Rose's room, "I am terrible with figures."

He gave Hermione one final grin and saw her roll her eyes again. Chuckling to himself, Ron walked into the room, happily noting that Rose was already asleep again, and wondered just how much rounding up he could get away with.


	7. Chapter 7

_A/N: __This is a bit all over the place with silliness and angst and all kinds of stuff but oh well. It might be worth reading 'Thirty Hours' before or after this, which is not something I thought I'd ever say before a chapter of Sunday. Anyway, I am prouder of this disclaimer than I am of anything I've ever done ever and I wish I was joking about this._

_Disclaimer: This is a story all about how Ron's life got flipped, turned upside down_

_Now I'd like to take a minute, just sit right there, as I justify ripping off the Prince of Bel-Air_

_*DANCE BREAK*_

_Iiiiiiin the West Country, born and raised, writing stories is how JKR spent most of her days,_

_Harry Potter, Cas Vacancy and even Beedle the Bard,_

_And when she had time, the odd b-day card_

_When a couple of writers, not a single fuck they gived,_

_Started writing fanfic about the boy who lived._

_HalfASlug got in one little lawsuit and trembled in fear,_

_Started crying "J.K Rowling owns everything you recognise here."_

* * *

It was on heavy feet that Ron made his way upstairs. With Hermione at one of her fancy work dinners and the kids at Hogwarts, there was no one to greet him. He didn't mind all that much. After all, he had only been to the pub with Harry for a couple, it wasn't like he'd been away for weeks, but it still would have been nice to come home to a house flooded with light, warmth and laughter.

As he entered the bedroom, Ron noticed how unusually messy it was. One of the wardrobe doors was open, there were several of Hermione's dress robes hanging up around the place and the bed was unmade, the duvet, balled up in the middle of the mattress. Ron chuckled, remembering the last minute crisis Hermione had had while deciding what to wear. He was no use, seeing as he thought she looked great in everything, but she had to take into account when she had last worn each item, if the colour was too 'loud' for this event and whether she would be taken seriously. The last one was the funniest to Ron. She was one of the most respected people in the ministry and, if that wasn't enough, she was second in command of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and nobody wanted to get on the wrong side of them.

Normally Ron would go with her to these things even though he hated them. They had got better once they had stopped being some kind of celebrity couple and people would stare obviously at them, but they were still incredibly dull. He'd lost count of the amount of times Hermione had had to nudge him awake. Still, with him there, Hermione was always calmer, more collected. Well, she was still liable to go into a meltdown if she had to make a speech, but Ron could cool her down.

Tonight, however, she had elected to take one of the promising office juniors in his stead in the hopes of giving him some experience and making useful connections. Ron supposed he should have been worried about his wife going to a dinner with a twenty year old, but having met the twenty year old in question, he wasn't so worried. He was like a cross between Percy and Pig with terrible skin.

Ron unbuttoned his shirt and threw it behind him somewhere. Something like guilt niggled him as he remembered that he had promised to tidy the bedroom up before Hermione got home, but he figured she'd be too tired to notice. What was one more shirt anyway? A quick survey of the bedroom floor told him that Hermione certainly would notice, but he could deal with that tomorrow. It was when Ron began to wonder if Hermione would wake him or wait to shout at him in the morning that the full length mirror by the dressing table caught his eye. He shuffled over to it and squinted at it as his eyes adjusted to the still-dark room.

Even in the half-light, Ron could still them. There, just above his ears. Two, small patched of grey hair. He ran his fingers through it, revealing more of them, and pouted slightly. Really, he should count himself lucky that his hair was light to start with. You could barely see them until there was a sizable patch, unlike Harry whose greys stood out against his jet black mop. Even Hermione's were visible. Well, they would have been if she hadn't started dying her hair. At first she had tried to hide it from him and had been upset when he found out anyway. Ron could still remember her crying because she thought he'd leave her and being unable to stop laughing at the thought. This had resulted in having the bottle of dye thrown at him. He didn't take it personally though. It wasn't long after she had had Hugo and the pregnancy hormones were still fighting strong. Crying and throwing things was basically what she did all day anyway.

Ron took care to rearrange his hair so the grey patches were as invisible as possible and found himself incredibly grateful that it was still thick enough to grow longer. If he had inherited his dad's receding hairline like Percy had he would have been screwed.

In fact, compared to a couple of his brothers, Ron had to admit that the aging process had been kind to him. He twisted slightly and noted that he could still see his ribs. Although he had always been a rake and the only way they wouldn't be visible was if they were removed. There was the small matter of his stomach. Much to Ginny's amusement, years of gluttony had finally caught up with Ron in the form a slight pot belly. On anyone else it wouldn't have been noticeable, but on Ron he looked a bit pregnant if he wore certain tops. Hermione loved it as well, but Ron guessed that because it was a giant 'I told you so' after years of telling him to watch his diet.

Scowling, Ron poked it and watched his stomach wobble a little. It wasn't like the rest of him was flabby or he was in bad shape. Actually, thanks to years of Auror training, he was still pretty fit. While his chest wasn't as defined as it had been when he was in his twenties, he was still fairly toned. He placed his hand above one of his pecs, pulled the muscle up a little before letting it drop.

It jiggled a little bit more than he remembered it doing. Still, at least man-boobs weren't as far south as Hermione's. Although he supposed actually having real boobs and birthing two kids didn't help. And they weren't even that bad either, as he had constantly told her since Rose had been born. It seemed that the older they got, the more they found was wrong with their bodies that the other one didn't really care about. Ron wasn't sure if he dreaded or looked forward to the day that he had more hair coming out of his nose than on his head.

Figuring he might as well get into bed and wait for Hermione, Ron unbuckled his belt, shoved his boxers and jeans off at the same time and kicked them across the room. It was another pet peeve of Hermione's but if he was going to get in trouble he might as well do it properly. Eventually his socks were flung away and Ron was left naked in front of the mirror. He wanted to move, to crawl under the covers and forget about work tomorrow, but something kept him there.

Before he was sure what he was doing, Ron was inspecting his legs. To him they were just legs. All blokes' legs looked the same, but Hermione always complimented his thighs for some reason. It baffled him. How could thighs be sexy? Well, Hermione's were but they were Hermione's. It was a whole different ball game when body parts were attached to Hermione. It gave them an unfair advantage.

Ron turned awkwardly so that he could sort of see his arse in his reflection. It wasn't a bad arse, really. It had served him well, anyway. In the dull light, Ron could just make out the small scar from when he had bent down to pick up a spoon a two year old Hugo had thrown across the kitchen. Hugo had wanted the spoon to stay there and had accidentally made the toaster explode, causing a bit of shrapnel to hit Ron on the backside. There was probably a way to magic the scar away, but Ron couldn't quite face asking anyone about it. Plus Hermione always ran her finger over it when she saw it and any excuse for Hermione to touch his arse was a good thing.

There weren't many blokes in their late-thirties that could claim that their wives still wanted them like they did when they were younger, Ron thought. He couldn't blame her, really, he added, smirking and glancing down at Not-So-Little Little Ron. Yep, where other blokes hit middle age like a brick wall, Ron was proud to say that he wasn't doing too badly. To prove his point to himself, he flexed his arms and smiled at the muscle definition there.

"Not bad at all," he whispered under his breath as he brought both arms up into another pose.

Letting his still ever present immaturity take over, Ron laced his fingers behind his head and struck a pose that he thought he might have seen in a magazine, dropping one hip and pulling and overly serious expression. Suddenly Ron was very grateful that the house had been empty when he got home and started dancing a little bit. It wasn't long before the slight hip wiggles had morphed into fully fledged thrusts and gyrations. He started humming some fuck awful song he heard on the radio that morning as his fist pumped into the air.

Ron knew that he must look insane, but life was too serious sometimes and these things were bound to happen. Besides, his moves weren't all that bad. Well, Rose always refused to be in the same room with him if he started dancing, but she had the same reaction to him kissing Hermione and he was great at that.

Just as Ron performed a daring, mid-air spin, he heard it: a snort of laughter from the bed.

Ron jumped about four foot in the air, tried to turn back around and crashed into the wardrobe, causing the snort to become a shriek.

"C-c-can't believe," Hermione rasped from under the covers, "I l-let you f-f-father my ch-ch-children!"

His face surely glowing red with embarrassment, Ron staggered to his feet and scowled at his wife, doubled over, gasping and howling with laughter on the bed.

"All right, all right," he mumbled. "Don't act like you don't do it."

"No!" she wheezed between guffaws, tears streaming down her cheeks.

Ron crossed arms in a dignified manner. "You just wanted to ogle me."

Hermione wiped her eyes and coughed a few times. "I was actually wondering if you were rehearsing for some kind of play."

"Well, you can't keep talent like this hidden away," Ron grumbled.

Straight away Hermione's mirthful expression flipped into of suspicion. "And how many people have tickets for this show?"

"Just you," Ron grinned.

"Good," said Hermione, hugging her knees over the duvet. "Now get that arse over here, Mr Sexy."

"_Mr Sexy?_"

"It's your stage name."

Ron chuckled as he made his way over to her. He stood by the bed and leant over so his face was close to hers. Hermione gave him a cheeky smile and Ron found he wasn't all that humiliated anymore. He knew she wouldn't tell anyone else and that she really didn't think less of him. While she'd definitely take the piss, she had almost come to expect this kind of thing from him.

He thought for a moment about saying thank you for being her, but, as ever, he didn't know how to make the words sound as important as they were, so he kissed her and hoped she could feel it somehow.

"So why were you perving on me?" he asked, climbing into bed.

"Party was a waste of time," she told him with a roll of her eyes. "It was full of insufferable bores."

Ron thought that sounded like all of the functions she had to attend, but he decided not to say that. "Did your minion have fun at least?"

Hermione frowned at the nickname. "_Peter_ made lots of good contacts and connections." She turned on her side and hugged him, her eyes sad for moment. "Still wish you could have been there."

"Who could blame you?" Ron asked with a heavy sigh.

"You're a plonker, you know?" Hermione told him conversationally.

"I have been informed once or twice, yes." Ron rolled onto his side and pushed some of Hermione's hair out of her face. "As long as I get to be your plonker."

"You most certainly do," whispered Hermione and Ron kissed her nose, earning him a giggle. It was amazing how she could be ministry employee extraordinaire one minute and be a teenager the next.

Whenever Hermione giggled Ron couldn't help but kiss her. Despite the bedroom being a mess and her evening being terrible, she was in an amazing mood and it probably had something to do with him being caught dancing naked. He should probably start doing it all the time to get out of trouble.

Eventually, Ron was lying on his back with Hermione curled up against his side, tracing the line of his hip bone. The house and everything outside was silent; all he could hear was their breathing. You couldn't pay for this kind of peace, Ron thought as he glanced at the clock and saw it was coming up to midnight.

And just like that the peace evaporated as the thought that had been troubling Ron all day came back to him and with his defences so low there was nothing to stop him sharing it with Hermione.

"Am I old?"

"What?" yawned Hermione.

"Am I old?" he repeated.

"No," she replied. "If you're old then I'm six months older than old so be careful what you say."

"Okay," Ron said quietly, even though it wasn't. For once Hermione was joking while he was being deadly serious. Thankfully, even though neither said anything else and she had her eyes closed, Hermione still sensed something was wrong. She propped her head up on his chest to look at him, a slight crease between her brows.

"Is this about your birthday?" she asked. By the tone of her voice, Ron could tell she didn't really know why he was acting strangely.

"It's three days away."

"Worry about it in three days then." Hermione gave him a smile and settled back against him.

Normally the urge to talk about feelings was not something Ron felt a lot so he was surprised to find that he was becoming frustrated with Hermione not pestering him to open up. He could never make sense of these things without bouncing ideas off her.

"I'm going to be forty," he said miserably. Just hearing the number aloud made his skin crawl and his stomach feel oddly empty.

"I know," came Hermione's reply. She seemed to realising that this was an issue, even if she couldn't work out why.

"Forty."

"It isn't that bad, you know."

"Yeah," Ron whinged, "but you suit forty!"

That got her attention. Quicker than he could have expected her too given that she was half-asleep, Hermione sat up and looked down at him with a serious expression.

"Explain," she demanded.

"It's all smart clothes and sexy reading glasses for you," Ron dismayed, rubbing her lower back. "You were born to be forty."

Hermione seemed to think over his words for a moment before lying back down on her side. "I think that's a compliment."

Ron turned to face her and shook his head. "I'm not forty."

"No, you're thirty-nine."

Now was not the time for her to get smart with him. Even if she was technically correct.

"It took me three attempts to get off the sofa this afternoon."

"That's better than normal," she joked, poking his ribs, but Ron didn't laugh.

"I had to go for a slash after every pint at the pub."

"Honestly-" Hermione huffed but Ron interrupted.

"I'm old," he repeated despondently.

He closed his eyes and tried to not think about the horrible sensation inside of him that he couldn't figure out. So far talking wasn't helping. Hermione shifted so that she was half-lying on him, her face inches from his.

"You're still as ruggedly handsome as the day I married you," she whispered and kissed him deeply. Automatically his arms wrapped around her as his mouth responded. This kind of thing usually warmed him from his toes to the tips of his hair, no matter what colour it was nowadays. The compliments, the physical affection… he craved it when he was down and she knew it.

So why wasn't it working this time?

Ron pulled away and Hermione gave him a look that told him he had to explain because she was running out of ideas. He sighed and ran a hand through her hair.

"One day I won't be," he tried again in a quiet voice. "As handsome as you seem to think I am, I mean."

Hermione gave him a small smile. "That's fine," she chuckled lightly. "You can get as old as you like as long as you get old with me." She gave him a lingering kiss to underline her point.

"Where do you get these things from?" Ron asked, shaking his head, still unable to explain why he felt this way.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Shut up and kiss me, old man."

She leaned in again, but this time Ron backed away. "Hermione," he started, but still the words would come.

With her usually confidence building techniques not having any effect, Hermione pushed herself up so she was leaning on her elbow.

"Ron," she asked, turned his cheek to face her, "what is this about?"

It was then, with Hermione looking at him with such concern in her eyes, that it all clicked into place and the words finally came.

"I wasn't supposed to make eighteen," he croaked.

That was it. Every milestone birthday he reached felt like he had cheated somehow. At seventeen he had signed himself off, was convinced he would die in the war protecting Harry, Hermione or anyone else he loved. It wasn't bravery that caused him to put one foot in front of the other; it was the fact he already considered himself to be a dead man walking.

And then of course the dead man had walked and kept on walking away from those he had sworn to shield and waiting for the final blow didn't seem like an option anymore.

Even now part of Ron was still that seventeen year old boy that saw no future, just a cliff face and an easy way out. A seventeen year old who felt like a small child caught in a man's world that he was never going to make it in. A seventeen year old that gave up on the dream of ever being eighteen.

So now, looking forty in the face, Ron remembered that this was another birthday he was never supposed to reach with the family he wasn't supposed to have in the life he wasn't supposed to build. It felt like borrowed time and even now he wasn't sure if he had used it wisely.

It wasn't far into this train of thought that he felt tears building and he blinked them away. He may have cried in front of Hermione many times before, but it didn't mean he wanted to. Ron felt her fingertips lightly lift his chin and he just about managed to look into her eyes.

And he was so glad that he did.

There he saw that she knew what he was talking about. Decades ago now he had told her all that the locket did to him and it was never talked about again because neither of them could face it. He also saw the sadness she felt that he was still beating himself for the mistakes he made long ago and had never come close to repeating. Most of all though, he saw the love that had been there from the start and, as she smiled, Ron wondered how he could possibly question whether or not he had wasted his life.

"But you were, Ron," she said in a strained voice as she stroked his cheek. "You were."

And then when she kissed him, he felt younger than he had in years as his soul caught fire.

* * *

_A/N: See? All over the place. Nudity and tears. Anyway, Happy birthday for tomorrow, Mr Weasley. Sorry for making you sad in this but you totally got laid afterwards so it isn't all bad._

_Been a while since I did this on here so here's not one but two fics you should read:_

_For Better - thesecondshelf_

_The Black Library - Rokesmith_

_So go and read them. Thank you._


	8. Chapter 8

_A/N: If you want to read a story a bit similar to this chapter but better then you should read That Day by Ninnytreetops. It's probably my favourite R/Hr one-shot ever. There have been a few little homages to it in my other fics and is the story that made me change my head canon to include the two of them living in a shit hole in London for a while. Seeing as I'm ripping it off more than usual here I thought I better rec it. And apologise for the level of ripping off displayed here. _

_Disclaimer: J.K Rowling doubts your commitment to Sparkle Motion and owns Harry Potter. I have never doubted your commitment to Harry Potter and own Sparkle Motion._

* * *

This was as perfect as life could get as far as Hermione was concerned. She was warm, encased in thick duvet, with her head sinking further into her pillow. For all she knew all she was just a head. She couldn't really feel the rest of her body and that didn't seem to matter at the minute. Nothing too bad could be happening if she was in what felt like a giant marshmallow, could it? She could stay here forever if she wanted.

As soon as the thought had happened, Hermione felt herself gradually slip back into consciousness. The rest of her brain kick started and took note of not just the rest of her body that was curled into a ball, but the heat of another person lying behind her. Within seconds, Hermione knew where she was, who she was with and whatever had just happened that made her feel so happy had been a dream. Even though it happened every day, Hermione sometimes found that nothing could be as upsetting as waking up.

Thankfully every morning the cure to her upset was never too far away. Her eyes still closed and her body protesting, Hermione rolled over and cuddled up to the bare torso she found. As always, an arm wrapped around her and a kiss was planted somewhere on top of her head. Today it managed to be on her temple which was big improvement on yesterday when it had somehow managed to end up in her eye.

"Time is it?" she mumbled, pulling Ron closer to her.

"Dunno," came his grunt of a reply.

"Good," she sighed. "Probably feel guilty if I knew."

"Why?"

"Because I'm still in bed."

"It's Sunday," Ron pointed out. The more he spoke the less gravelly his voice became and Hermione lamented that it would be another twenty-four hours until she got to hear Ron's sleepy voice again.

"We don't usually just stay in bed all day on Sundays."

"Yeah," Ron yawned, "but normally I've got a shift at the shop or you have something to do and, even when we don't, we go to see your parents."

"Reminds me," said Hermione, moving her head so it rested on Ron's shoulder. "Got a postcard yesterday."

Ron shifted a little so that he could see part of her face. "How are they?" he inquired.

"Mum says she loves all the attention she is getting off the 'strapping young men'-"

"Bet your dad isn't."

"-and Dad found a bookshop that he wants to take me to at some point," Hermione finished as though Ron hadn't spoken.

"You are," Ron sighed, shaking his head, "the only two people I know in the _world_ who would bother with bookshops while on holiday."

Hermione chuckled lightly, shuffled closer to Ron and closed her eyes. She had changed her mind; _this _was as perfect as life could be. Even without the presence of Voldemort in their lives, things hadn't stopped being action packed for the couple. There had still been arguments, Ron and Harry still ended up in hospital every so often and it turned out keeping up with family obligations and in contact with friends almost took up as much time as a full time job. On the subject of full time jobs, theirs seemed custom made to take up every waking hour they had spare. Ron always argued that criminals needed to learn about the typical nine-to-five, while Hermione had started working closely with Percy in International Co-Operation and was having meetings all around the globe, trying to make life fairer for magical creatures.

In fact, the only time Hermione could really remember being like this was the summer before she went to Hogwarts for the final time and even then they had to avoid parents and siblings. Being married and living together meant nothing to the real world that kept bringing them interruptions and obligations.

"So," Hermione sighed, "what's the plan for today?"

"A Sunday where we don't have to be anywhere?"

"Hmm."

Ron pulled Hermione closer to him so that she was half lying on him and squeezed her a little. "This."

"Sounds good," murmured Hermione. She planted a kiss over his heart and buried herself further into the duvet. It was going to take something spectacular to get her to move. As she was about to close her eyes and try and get some more sleep, Ron cocked his head forward so he could see her. He blinked a couple of times, sleep still clinging to his eyelashes, and frowned.

"Really?" he asked.

Hermione rested her chin on his chest. "Why do you sound so surprised?" she chuckled. "I do like spending time with you."

"Yeah, the "I do" gave that away," Ron retorted with an eye roll. "It's not like you to want to stay in bed all day though. Even when you're ill you're trying to rid the world of social injustice or shout at me," he added with a shrug.

Times like these made Hermione question what other people must think of her. She didn't think she was as uptight as Ron made her out to be. Obviously he exaggerated, but it came from somewhere. Just because she rarely saw the point of wasting a day in bed, didn't mean she was some kind of robotic slave driver.

The smile playing around Ron's lips was enough to tell her that he meant nothing by his comment and Hermione was too content to start an argument over something so trivial. He usually meant it as a compliment in his own strange way.

Even though she had decided to stay how she was, wrapped in Ron's arms and the duvet, Hermione moved so she was lying on top of Ron. His hands began stroking her back as she leant over so that her hair blocked most of the light. In the semi-darkness she could still see Ron's smile.

"I can think of nothing more perfect than lying here with you, darling husband, in this bed and pretending the rest of the world doesn't exist for a couple of hours," Hermione whispered against his lips. Just as she was about to close the distance, morning breath the last thing on her mind, the room was filled with the sound of clattering metal and a roaring engine.

With a groan, Hermione rolled back onto her side of the bed and waited for the noise to fade and the windows to stop rattling.

"That'll be the Brighton train," Ron grumbled.

"Sounds more like the Croydon one to me," sighed Hermione, smiling apologetically at Ron.

Rather than taking this frequent occurrence as well as he normally did, Ron scowled at the ceiling. "Hard to forget the world in this place," he muttered. He gave the bedroom of their tiny London flat a dirty look as though it was the structure's fault it was built next to a train track.

"_This place,_" Hermione scolded him with a poke to his shoulder,_ "_is our home."

Ron met her eyes with a dark look. "It's a one bedroom flat in a very loud part of London that would smell strange if we didn't have magic to stop it."

"And it's our home."

Hermione held his gaze for a long time and hoped he would cheer up. She knew their living situation wasn't ideal, but she was more than willing to put up with it. They would soon have enough saved for a deposit on a house. It was still a couple of months before they could start looking, but they had decided it would be somewhere more rural. Hermione couldn't wait. They could make it their own, have a garden… And have enough space for their possessions. It really wasn't convenient to cast Undetectable Extension Charms on various boxes.

Not having to hide any existence of magic from their Muggle landlord would be nice as well.

Ron opened his mouth to say something but closed it again and swallowed. Knowing he was holding something back, Hermione placed her hand on his upper arm. Underneath his warm skin and the slight ridges of scar tissue, she felt his muscles tense.

"Just wish I could afford somewhere better," he mumbled. Normally when he moaned about not being well off, he sounded gloomy. Hermione was surprised this time to hear a tone more annoyed than anything.

"_We_," she corrected him sternly. "And soon we'll have enough savings. We'll be able to move out and live in a nice house in a nice part of the country and-"

"Oi! Dickshit!" interrupted a distant voice of a teenage boy. "Why don't you just fuck off, yeah?"

"-and not have to put up with next door's demon kid?" Ron finished for her.

Hermione closed her eyes and waited for the argument down on the street to subside. By the sounds of things the other voice was that of a policeman.

"And that, yes," she agreed quietly. The boy couldn't have been more than thirteen and yet spent more time outside after dark than at school. Ron had several nicknames for him, including Draco Mark II and Perfect Contraception. He was also convinced he was the reason their rent was the cheapest in London.

Hermione's thoughts were cut short by Ron's voice. "I'm sorry."

Turning to see his expression, Hermione found that he looked hopeless. There was something about that shade of blue that caused the sadness in his eyes to intensify. "Whatever for?"

"If…" Ron paused, struggling to meet her eyes. "If I hadn't have asked you to marry me," he explained quickly, "then we wouldn't have had to pay for a wedding and-"

"And if I hadn't said yes," cut in Hermione, "then we wouldn't have had to pay for a wedding." She stared at her husband for a long time, waiting for him to look at her. He didn't seem capable though.

"Ron," she said quietly, unsure if she was more angry or scared, "do you regret getting married?"

Thankfully, he looked at her. "Not for a second," he told her sharply. "It's just…" His voice lost its certainty and he sighed heavily. Hermione waited for an explanation as he pushed her hair away from her face. "I wish I could give you better," he finished quietly.

Seemingly unaware of Hermione's reaction to his words, Ron tried to wrap an arm over her stomach but she pushed him away. He gave her a questioning look as she sat up, letting the cold air attack her skin. It was nothing to how her insides had frozen though. In the background she heard Ron say her name, but she didn't respond, even after he lightly stroked her arm with his fingertips. They had been together for five years and he still didn't understand.

"What is it going to take?" she asked, still not looking at him. Her voice wavered with the effort it was taking to not start shouting. Behind her she heard Ron sit up against the headboard, the bedsprings groaning with the strain. For a moment he was silent and Hermione hugged her knees, waiting.

"What?" he eventually said, causing her to turn to face him. He looked utterly lost.

"I kissed you," Hermione gritted out. "I told you I loved you. I slept with you. I moved in with you. I _married _you." With each syllable her voice had grown louder and Ron had cowered a little more. The anger faded into sadness at the sight. "And sometimes it's like you're still sixteen and the best thing you can think of to get my attention is to tell me that you're tall."

Ron frowned. "When did that ever happen?"

"Years ago," she replied.

The crease between Ron's eyes deepened as he tried to recall the incident.

"Well," he shrugged, "I am tall."

"It's not the point!" Hermione huffed. "When are you going to accept that I don't want fancy things? I want _you_." She jabbed her finger into his stomach and flung herself back down.

For a few loaded seconds there was silence. Both of them seemed to be holding their breaths. Eventually, Hermione glanced at Ron.

"Are you saying I'm not fancy?" he pouted.

"No," Hermione snapped. He wasn't going to get away with this by turning it into a joke. "I'm saying you seem like you don't think I'll be happy until you've given me a throne, a crown and a-a golden sceptre!"

Ron frowned again. "Where the bloody hell would you keep a throne? If we get one of the bigger bottles of milk you have to squeeze your stomach in to get into the kitchen!" he chuckled.

Hermione glared at him, but it just made Ron laugh harder. With a huff she rolled onto her side so she wouldn't have to look at him. So much for a perfect Sunday in bed… If Ron was going to be an arse then she would have to think of something else to do with her day. Well, she would the moment Ron had cast a heating charm on the flat. There was no way she was getting out of bed before that.

Ron sighed as Hermione turned away from him. The laughter subsided and all he was left with was the half of his torso she had been laying on feeling chilly. Deep down he knew he had been a tit and spoke without thinking. He got how being married meant they shared everything and he loved it. Sharing his life with Hermione was the only way he thought he would ever want it to be. But couldn't she see how he wanted the best for her? She deserved it and he wanted to be the one who gave it her.

The problem was that, not only did she deserve the best, she was fiercely independent and would like to get the best herself. He loved that about her, but his instinct was to look after her. He couldn't help it.

It frustrated him so much every time a cupboard door would break or the hot water stopped working. In order to keep within the Statute of Secrecy they had to allow the landlord to fix any serious problems and not rely on magic to fix things permanently. Hermione would think of a spell that would prevent them having cold showers or whatever and, even though she didn't seem too disheartened, Ron hated it. He was letting her down.

Of course his attempts to explain had backfired because he was shit with words. Even the ones that sounded good in his head never made it out of his mouth in one piece. He wasn't about to let a slip of the tongue ruin a lazy Sunday. Hermione seemed pretty set on being pissed off though. Even from behind he could tell she had her arms tightly folded.

Slowly, as to give her enough time to push him away if she wanted, Ron sank back down under the covers and rolled over to hug her from behind. Although she didn't reject him, she remained tense. He kissed her shoulder through the thin cotton of her pyjama top and forced his right hand into hers.

"I'd never get you a throne," he mumbled into her hair. "Not a proper one, anyway. I'd get you a throne of books."

"And what would I sit on if I wanted to read the books?" came Hermione's icy reply.

"A chair."

Ron bit his lip and waited. He felt her twitch as though she was trying to stop herself laughing and soon he heard a giggle escape. She rolled over and started tracing patterns on chest. Years ago it would have taken forever for her to forgive him for this sort of thing. Sometimes it still did. But over time they had both learnt that it was sometimes better to not hold a grudge. Their time together was so limited it seemed pointless to spend it angry.

"And if you wore a crown around here you'd get mugged so…" Ron continued thoughtfully, "I'd get you a woolly hat. You like woolly hats, right?"

Hermione nodded. "I do."

Ron smiled at getting something right. He considered the rest of her original statement and then shook his head. "I have no idea why you want a sceptre."

"It could make me look regal," suggested Hermione seriously although the corner of her mouth twitched.

"Well, it still seems pointless to me," Ron dismissed. "Instead I'll get you a… sandwich."

Hermione's jaw dropped. "A sandwich?"

"Yeah." Ron shrugged. "Can't go wrong with a good sandwich."

"What makes it a good sandwich?" she asked him, narrowing her eyes.

"It's ham and cheese."

Hermione seemed impressed. "That is a good sandwich."

"I know," Ron said as though it was obvious. "That's why I gave it to you."

"Well, thank you for the hypothetical sandwich," Hermione chuckled as she snuggled closer to him. "I love it more than my hypothetical and useless sceptre."

"What if a hypothetical bloke offered you a library, a wardrobe full of woolly hats and an entire buffet?" Ron asked tentatively, stroking her arm. "I don't think I'm going to ever be able to give you that stuff."

"No. You'd eat half of the buffet," Hermione said with a smile.

"So? What if Hypothetical Bloke gave you all that crap?" Ron tried to keep the uncertainty out of his voice but he had a feeling that he failed. He had no idea why, even now, he'd occasionally be hit by a wave of doubt. The way she was looking at him should have been enough.

She stared at him for a long time. It was one of those looks where it felt like Hermione was reading his mind. He kept eye contact, hoping she would be able to see the words he couldn't articulate and the feelings he couldn't express.

"Is the hypothetical bloke you?" she questioned.

"Nope. I'm too busy eating the buffet he's giving you," Ron added with a grin.

"Then there would be no contest," Hermione said simply, cupping his cheek. "If he isn't you, then I don't care. No other man could ever offer me anything I want because all I want is you."

And then she was kissing him and his hands were buried in her hair. The taste and feel of her wiped all doubt from his mind. He could put up with the terrible neighbours and miniscule flat if he still had this. She was right, after all. Soon they could have a house to call their own. It would be the life he had always dreamed of and they would have made it for themselves.

Ron broke away when he felt his left arm go fuzzy. He dragged it out from under his pillow and used it to pull Hermione on top of him again. If he could have her as a permanent duvet he would.

"Your lines are cheesier than your sandwich," he whispered into her shoulder as he ran his hands over her back.

"What about you?" she said, lifting her head up. "Any hypothetical leggy blonde I need to worry about?"

"Nah."

"Sure?" she asked. She raised her eyebrows. "She'd probably go to Quidditch matches with you?"

"You go to Quidditch matches with me," Ron pointed out. An afternoon watching the Cannons or the Harpies with Hermione was more enjoyable than it was with Harry surprisingly. She was less likely to laugh at him if the Cannons lost and didn't spend Harpies games fretting for the safety of their star Chaser.

"Yes," Hermione said, rolling her eyes, "but she would let you swear at the ref."

"Where's the fun if you have permission?"

Hermione narrowed her eyes in thought. "She'd let you put your Cannons posters up in here."

"Really?" Ron's hands ceased their movements.

"Hm-mm."

"Hermione?" Ron said slowly. "How would I go about getting a divorce?"

"Oh, it's this long drawn out process," she replied, nodding seriously, "that would involve lots of paperwork and me removing your genitals from your person."

Ron's face fell. "That doesn't sound fun."

"It doesn't, does it?" Hermione said conversationally.

"Then I'm probably going to have to turn the leggy blonde down," sighed Ron, his whole body sagging with disappointment.

"She will be heartbroken." Hermione patted his shoulder sympathetically.

"Nah, she's got her eye on that nutter with sceptre and the buffet anyway."

Hermione snorted with mirth and buried her face into Ron's neck as he held her close and began laughing himself. His jokes were never as clever as hers, but Ron knew she liked them. When they were at serious and boring work dinners, Ron would try and make her laugh to pass the time. She'd give him disapproving looks, but when she thought he wasn't looking, he would see her smiling fondly in his direction. She could be just as silly as he was when no one else was watching.

Eventually Hermione calmed down enough to look at him again and they shared one of those intense looks that Ron wouldn't have thought himself capable of ten years ago. They always left him feeling strangely vulnerable. It was though Hermione could see the real him, even the parts he hid from the world, but it was okay. He could see all of her, after all, and she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

"I'm sorry," he said in almost a whisper. He rested his hand against her cheek and she leant into with a sigh.

"Don't be."

They smiled and knew that a similar argument would happen sometime in the future, but it wouldn't last long if they didn't let it. They understood each other too well to let it change anything.

"What time is it?" Hermione asked him again.

"Dunno."

Hermione laid her head against his chest. "I wish we could spend every day like this," she whispered.

Ron chuckled. "You'd get bored eventually."

"Would you?"

She shifted slightly so that she could see him, a small crease on her forehead and her hair everywhere. Ron knew his answer.

"No." He kissed her on the forehead and stayed there until he felt her relax once more. "I could never get bored of doing nothing but hang around with you," he told her.

It was true. Yeah, she annoyed the hell out of him sometimes, but it was worth it for the good parts. Even if she was reading and not paying attention to him, he would enjoy himself. There was something about knowing that she was happy that made him feel better than most other things could.

"You're a liar," Hermione smirked, "but I love you for it."

"A liar?" exclaimed Ron, scandalised. Hermione raised her eyebrows. "Well, I could probably last a week."

Instead of being offended, Hermione gave him a soft smile. "That sounds good."

She rested her forehead against his and exhaled. A week of just each other… It sounded like bliss. Maybe they could go on holiday once they had settled into their new house? They hadn't really been on one since their honeymoon and they definitely needed one. He could surprise her for her birthday perhaps? Ron decided to save the idea and think about it when he was more awake.

"We've only got a day though," he reminded her sadly. "Work tomorrow. Duty calls."

"Then let's make the most of it and do nothing all day," Hermione said as though she had suggested they rob a bank, which wouldn't exactly be a new experience for them. "We'll even splash out on a takeaway."

"Knew there was a reason I made you that sandwich," Ron smirked as Hermione giggled. Whenever she made that noise he was powerless to stop himself from kissing her. Unfortunately, just as he felt her breath against his lips, he heard the front door open.

"Ron?"

"I know."

The both of them froze and stared into each other's eyes. They weren't stupid. Given Ron's job, their parts in the war and the area they lived in, they had made sure that breaking into their flat was highly difficult. Whoever was currently talking in hushed voices in their living room was either very, very clever, or very, very lucky.

Hermione rolled off Ron as he sat up and grabbed his wand. He motioned to Hermione to stay put, which earned him a look that clearly said "in your dreams." Ron glared at her in the hope that she would understand that he wasn't trying to undermine her; it was just that he was trained for these situations. All Hermione did was roll her eyes and pick up her own wand.

Deciding they could argue about this after he had arrested the trespassers, Ron pressed his finger to his lips and listened, trying to work out how many they were up against.

"Where are they?" he heard a female whisper.

"Maybe they went out? Or are still in bed?" replied a male. Ron frowned. It was hard to tell seeing as they were whispering, but he thought he might recognise the voice.

"Ron up at this time at the weekend?" said the female much louder this time.

Ron fell back against the pillows with a groan. His heart was still hammering against his ribs when he heard the male speak again from directly outside the bedroom door.

"You don't want to just barge in there."

"What makes you say that?"

"Unpleasant past experiences."

"Oh, grow up."

Hermione nudged Ron to get his attention. "That's-"

"Yeah."

He didn't get chance to say much more after that as the door crashed open and a short, red-haired woman paraded in as though she was invited.

"Cover yourselves!" she called out as she smiled at the couple still in bed.

"Ginny!" Ron growled. "We could've been naked!"

"That would have involved you getting laid, Ronnie," laughed Ginny, "and Hermione is too smart for that."

Before Ron could retort the man followed her into the room, apparently happy that everyone inside was clothed.

"Hey, guys," he said sheepishly.

Hermione pulled the covers up around herself. "We gave you that spare key for emergencies, Harry," she scolded him.

"This is an emergency," Harry insisted with a nod. "Well, it's urgent."

Ron scowled. "There's urgent and then there is barging in on a Sunday lie-in urgent."

Harry seemed unphased by the murderous glare Ron was trying to give him. "This is the latter," he said, moving to stand by Ginny at the end of the bed.

"What's happened?" Hermione worried.

"Nothing," Ginny reassured her before adding, "Yet, anyway."

Ron looked from his best friend to his sister, the frustration of the situation burning inside of him. They were clearly hiding something and, frankly, he couldn't give a shit. Whatever it was probably prevented him from shagging Hermione within the next ten minutes like he had been planning to. If it ruined his after-breakfast shag as well, he would probably be forgiven for killing them.

"Tell us what the bloody hell is going on," he demanded, throwing his wand back on the table with so much force it bounced off, sending red sparks at the wall.

No one noticed the sparks though. Hermione was scrutinising Harry and Ginny who were looking at each other as though they were chocolate cake. It was enough to make him feel sick.

"Well-" Harry began, reaching out to hold Ginny's hand and smiling in a rather disgusting way.

Next to Ron, Hermione gasped. He glanced at her and saw she had covered her mouth with her hand. Feeling as though he was missing something, Ron turned back to the other two who were still gazing at each other.

"I-I sort of," stammered Harry, "well…"

"We're eloping," Ginny interrupted. She turned to look at Ron and Hermione, bouncing on the balls of her feet, a look of pure elation on her face that was perfectly mirrored by Harry's.

Stunned, Ron's eyes flicked from his sister's ecstatic grin, to the joy radiating off his best friend and eventually onto the shocked and teary expression of his wife. He had no idea what to feel other than shock. All he knew was his perfect, lazy Sunday was about to become anything but.


	9. Chapter 9

_A/N: Two updates in one day. Don't say I never spoil you._

_That said this will probably be the last Romione thing I write for a little while. I'm still going to be writing but Ron and Hermione are being given a rest. After that they will be back with bells on top so don't panic__. Possibly icing as well. It will be a very weird fic. In the meantime, have a sad Sunday, written for Ollivander's Challenge on tumblr._

_Disclaimer: Harry Potter created J.K Rowling. _

* * *

Hermione had been curled up in bed for most of the evening. She had tried sleeping, pacing and thinking and none of it had helped. It had been two hours now and nothing was dulling the ache in her chest. Even listening to the muffled sounds of Ron putting little Rosie to bed hadn't been enough to raise a smile. Normally that was all it took was seeing her husband with her daughter to wipe everything else from her mind.

But today was different. Today was the day that Crookshanks had died.

The brilliant part of her mind kept telling her that she knew this was coming, that he was years past his best and he wasn't going to last much longer. It had been years since he had darted around the house, choosing instead to amble from one comfortable sleeping spot to another and he had barely been able to muster the energy to annoy Ron for the past few weeks. That's when she had known it was serious. Ron had even started being extra nice to him after that. With all this forethought and mental preparation Hermione had thought she would have been okay once the day came. A little sad perhaps, but overall, she would have been fine. Worse things had happened to her, after all.

Pulling the duvet tightly around her, Hermione realised that nothing could have prepared her for this day. Not really.

That morning in the kitchen she knew she had to do something with the body and yet she couldn't move. It wasn't a body. It was her beloved pet and she wasn't ready to say goodbye. It wasn't until Ron found a box and kindly offered to do the job for her while she gave Rosie her morning feed that Hermione had insisted she do it. She had raised Crookshanks, cared for him and loved him. It was only right that she did this, too.

So while Ron had played with the baby, Hermione had used her wand to dig a hole in back garden's flowerbed and lowered the cardboard box into it. She could feel Ron's eyes on her as she said goodbye and filled in the hole, but she didn't turn around. If he had known she was crying he would only worry.

Of course it hadn't stopped him from worrying. All day he had been fetching her tea and making Rosie giggle to cheer her up. He had even told George he wouldn't be in on Monday, just in case. She had told him he was being silly and that she was fine, really, she was. He had just smiled, his eyes, as ever, telling her what he really thought. _At least he had known better than to suggest getting a new cat_, she thought. He knew her better than to think another pet would help.

Hermione had very nearly made it all day being fine, or at least fine enough to carry on as almost normal. It wasn't until after dinner, when Rosie had crawled into the worn cat bed in the corner, waiting for her friend to join her, that Hermione had excused herself.

Just picturing her little girl's face, already so intelligent for her age, screwing itself up in confusion when Crookshanks didn't totter over to her was all it took for another wave of tears to fall. The nightly routine wasn't complete without Rosie having a cuddle with the cat. She refused to go to bed without it. Now she would be forced to and she was far too young for Hermione to explain it to her.

Her thoughts were interrupted when the mattress dipped and an arm snaked around Hermione's waist. She chastised herself for not keeping an ear out for her over-concerned husband.

"I'm fine," she sniffed.

"No, you're not."

"I am." She could hear how petulant she sounded with her tight voice and unwelcoming body language. This conversation wasn't going her way.

"Okay, you're fine," sighed Ron. "I'll just ignore the fetal position and the crying and the weird mood all day and just get some sleep, shall I?"

Hermione elbowed him in the ribs. Rather than retaliate, Ron simply held her and she couldn't decide if she loved or hated him for it.

"He was just a cat," she finally said aloud after a few minutes of silence. "Cats die every day."

"He was Crookshanks," Ron murmured. "He was more than a cat. He was a menace."

Hermione threw his arm off her and shuffled away from him. If he was going to try and settle some stupid score with her pet now she was going to kick him out of the bed so hard he'd hit the wall opposite.

"What?" Ron chuckled from behind her. "He was! But he was your menace," he finished seriously.

"I'm trying to sleep, Ron," she said coldly. His sympathy was one thing, but not even waiting a full twenty-four hours after his death to insult Crookshanks was too far.

Time passed slowly as Hermione tried to ignore Ron lying behind her. She needed time on her own to put all of this into perspective. Then it would make sense, she would see the bigger picture and be able to move on. Already she had thought of something to say in front of the freshly dug earth tomorrow morning. She couldn't remember what she had said there this morning and it was no doubt terrible. There was no way she could forgive herself if she didn't try again. Crookshanks deserved better.

"Remember that time he broke that vase?" Ron asked.

"The one with the blue pattern?"

"Yeah?"

"That was you."

"Oh." Hermione could almost feel Ron frowning behind her. "Well, I tried to blame it on Crookshanks."

"Yes, and he slept on your face for a week until you apologised to him," she reminded him.

Ron snorted. "Bloody cat." Somehow he managed to dodge the kick she sent his way. "Look," he said softly, "I know you're trying to be strong, but I know you and I know how much Crookshanks meant to you."

"He was my cat," Hermione replied shortly, trying not to focus on the word 'was'. "It isn't the end of the world."

"Fine." There was rustling sound as Ron dragged his long limbs under the covers, jostling Hermione slightly as he moved. "'Night." She heard him fumbling on the table as he snatched up his Deluminator and the room was plunged into darkness. Every night he did this rather than get out of bed. At first she thought it was out of laziness, but then came the night when the Deluminator hadn't been in there and Ron hadn't been able to go to sleep until he had found it. Despite being the least sentimental person she knew Ron couldn't sleep without it near him. The one time she had asked him why, he had replied, "You know" and she had.

"Remember our first big fight?" Hermione asked the darkness. She knew Ron would still be awake. They both knew better than to think the discussion had finished just because the lights were out.

"Erm… That one after Australia?" Ron answered uncertainly.

"No, not as a couple. As friends."

"Dirt on my nose?"

"No, that was before we were friends."

"That joke I made about Lockhart?"

"That wasn't a big fight."

"Lavender?"

"Not that big."

"Something about Harry?"

Hermione rolled over and could just make out Ron's thoughtful expression. "We've had too many fights to keep track of."

"Yep," nodded Ron. "Why did we get married again?"

Hermione shrugged. "You need someone to get rid of spiders."

"Very true." Ron grinned and kissed her forehead. Hermione didn't have the heart to still be annoyed with him, especially not when his face was lit up like that. He took the opportunity to push a stray curl off her face. "So what was our first big - but not huge - fight as friends?"

"You thought Crookshanks had eaten Scabbers and-"

"Of course," Ron groaned. "And I behaved like any reasonable and mature friend and didn't speak to you for weeks," he added, his expression slipping into one of guilt.

"And I was completely insensitive and focused more on my schoolwork than your feelings," Hermione added with a sad smile.

"I'll say it again - why are we married?"

"Crookshanks used to sleep at the end of my bed - you know how he hates being fussed over while he's trying to sleep," she added, ignoring Ron's comment. "But during that whole - unpleasant time - he let me hug him as I slept," Hermione explained, her eyes burning again. "Like he knew."

As her voice broke on the last word, Ron pulled Hermione to him and held her against his chest as she started crying harder than she could remember in a long time. All day she had told herself that he was a pet and nothing more, but it just wasn't true. Crookshanks was the friend she had when there was no one else, when she had driven the others away. He was there when she had her heartbroken. He was there when she had sent her parents to the other side of the globe. He had been there after the funerals of friends who were as good as family. He had been there the afternoon she left Hogwarts, the night before her wedding, the morning of her first day as a mother and every mundane moment in between.

Never speaking and never needing to, he knew her better than most of the humans in her life did. And now he would never infuriate Ron, or watch Rosie grow up or be there for her again.

Because Crookshanks wasn't just a cat. Crookshanks was Crookshanks and now he was gone forever.

"Thank you," Hermione croaked when she could talk once more. "For today, I mean."

Ron kissed her cheek, still red and wet from crying, and buried his face in her hair. "Don't mention it."

Hermione squeezed him slightly, a few stray tears still falling, knowing exactly why she had got married.

* * *

_A/N2: If anyone is wondering how a cat purchased fully grown with a chip on its shoulder in '93 was still alive in '07 - I'm playing the half-kneazle card. If the kneazle is super smart it has probably worked out a way to live longer as well. Either way, that's my story and I'm sticking to it._


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